


The Magician's Game

by olivers_box_of_raisins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Lance sort of, Alternate Universe - Magic, Haha guess who just read Caraval, If you're looking for a fic with its shit together, Keith is cynical af, M/M, Memory Pears, Some angst, Tags May Change, This fic is... very heavily influenced by that book, irregular updates, then this is probably not the best thing for you to read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-04-06 19:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14063904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivers_box_of_raisins/pseuds/olivers_box_of_raisins
Summary: The Magician's Game of Marvels. Everyone has heard of it. Everyone dreams of getting invited by the Magician himself to participate in his mysterious Trials to win the prize of their greatest desire.Well, everyone except for the orphaned nobody from an insignificant island. Keith firmly believes the Magician is just a con artist, and the Game is a ploy for rich and gullible folks' money and time.He never expected to be personally invited to the Game of Marvels by the Magician himself. Suddenly, Keith is swept into a world of intrigue and suspense, of magic and miracles. But the deeper he delves into this strange world, the more secrets and forgotten memories seem to resurface unbidden from having been buried for so long, and just maybe, the Magician and his Game may not be all they seem...





	1. The Magician's Invitation

Everyone had heard about the mystical Magician’s Game of Marvels. Held every two years by the famed, mysterious Magician, they were all anyone could talk about these days. This year’s Game was said to have a special prize for the winner - your greatest desire. This worker of miracles was promising anyone who could pass all of his trials their greatest desire, that’s how powerful he was, no matter how impossible it may seem. People said this proved his almost godly abilities.

Keith, on the other hand, scoffed at their gossip and wonder over some shadowy person that was probably just a con artist.

“If he’s a fraud, then how would you explain all the miracles he’s already performed?” asked Pidge sensibly when he brought this point up to her. “I mean, he always goes through with his promises of delivering all these outlandish prizes in his games.”

Keith shrugged and looked away. “I dunno. I just feel like there might be less to him that it might seem.”

Now, as he passed two wealthy ladies giggling over their theories about the Magician, all he could think about was how _fake_ it all appeared. Only the elite first class could afford tickets for the Game of Marvels. An elaborate trick, that’s what it was, a game for fools and naive wealthy people in desperate need of some kind of thrill in their mundane lives made up of lies and frivolous things.

He shook his head in disgust and hurried past the two women, starting the long trek up the hill toward the Garrison. 

Halfway up the hill, he caught sight of a familiar, small green speck running at top speed toward him, waving their arms over their head. Pidge. She had hitched her skirts up to an indecent height around her knees to run faster, and was holding something in her hand; it looked almost like a letter.

She was running too quickly to stop before she caught up to Keith; she rammed into his chest so hard that he almost fell over. The letter in her hand fluttered to the ground, and she snatched it up before he could pick it up and read it.

Pidge waved the letter in Keith’s face, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re never going to guess what you got in the mail!” 

“Why were you looking through my mail?” Keith asked suspiciously.

Pidge stuck her tongue out at him. “Like that matters. It’s the Magician! For the Game! You’ve been invited to the Magician’s Game of Marvels!”

Keith blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about? There’s got to be some mistake. I can’t afford it. Give me that.”

Pidge put up a bit of a struggle, but this time her height worked against her. Keith quickly overpowered her and tore the letter from her hand, hungrily reading the inscription. It really was his address, right down to his dormitory number. No return address, just a wax seal of a lion with a crown made of sparkling ice floating above its head. The stamp of the Magician. He ripped the letter open, read every word three times over, and still couldn’t believe it was true, despite the water lion crest and the single blue-and-silver ticket that anyone would recognize.

_You have been personally invited to the Magician’s Game of Marvels, a three-month-long event that takes place every two years! You are the only special guest the Magician has invited, so cherish this gift. This year’s Trials will be held on the island of Altea. You will be given five days to respond to the Magician’s invitation, or else you will not be allowed onto the island when the gates for the Game are opened on July 28th. You will receive more instructions and rules for the Game when you arrive on the island. The winner of the Game of Marvels will be gifted the prize of their greatest desire._

Pidge was practically bursting with excitement, jumping up and down and letting out small squeals every now and then, as if she could barely contain them. “You have to go! You have to tell me everything that happens; if you meet the Magician, everything!”

Keith frowned, reading the words one more time just to make sure this wasn’t all a trick of his eyes. “This... doesn’t make sense. Why me? Of all people, why did the Magician pick me? This isn’t some elaborate prank, is it? Pidge?

Pidge was too busy fangirling to answer his question. Keith figured this meant it was actually real since she never had such intense reactions as the panic attack she was having now. 

“I... but how...? The Magician doesn’t even know who I am! How can I be personally invited to his private island or whatever for his stupid Game?”

Pidge stopped jumping around everywhere to think rationally again. “How should I know? Do you have some secret history that I don’t know about?”

Keith shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. “Either way, how could I go there? I don’t have the money to buy a ticket for a ship to get to the island. I don’t even want to go! It’s all fake mythology for idiots and rich folk. Usually both.”

Pidge glared at him, hands on her hips, looking intimidating despite her small stature. 

“Okay, okay!” Keith snapped. “Maybe some of it is worth it, but that still doesn’t mean I want to go.” 

“Fine, then I’ll just take your ticket and go myself,” Pidge said, snatching the blue-and-silver ticket from his hands. But just as she was about to pocket it, she gasped and dropped it, clutching her hand to her chest. The ticket fluttered to the ground and started sinking into a puddle of mud. Even though it was the middle of summer, the island of the Galra was perpetually rainy and dreary. 

Keith picked up the ticket before it could be destroyed by the mud, and stared at it quizzically. Pidge cursed and batted her hand around as if trying to put out a fire. “What was that? It _burned_ me! It actually felt like fire!”

He looked down at the seemingly innocent slip of paper. “Maybe it doesn’t like you.”

“Ha ha.” Pidge crossed her arms. “I’ll bet it only accepts you. That is so not fair, you don’t even plan on going. I might as well make use of it, but _nooo_ ; the Magician is extremely wasteful in my opinion.”

“Well, then I guess I’ll just throw it away,” he said indifferently, poised to rip it to shreds. He was disgusted by the opulence and uselessness of the Games anyway; he couldn’t imagine participating in it.

“No! What are you thinking?” Pidge grasped for the letter instead, the next best thing. She ran her fingers over the fine, rich parchment, breathing in its scent of sea salt and magic. She was a girl fascinated by the unknown, both scientific and magical, it didn’t matter which one. “At least think about it for a while. This is the invitation of a lifetime.”

Keith sighed and plucked the letter from her hands again. “Fine. I'll consider it. But I probably won’t change my mind,” he warned.

Pidge smirked surreptitiously, forewarning of strife and nerves of steel to come.

 

The next few days were hell. Pidge would not let the subject of the Magician’s invitation drop. Each day she would sporadically jump out and surprise him with information on the Game of Marvels, revealing new wonders and miracles said to be found on the island of Altea. Alternate worlds overlapping with theirs that the Magician could enter, his ability to turn back or slow down time, animals that could speak, people from entirely different worlds, and so much more. 

She advertised the Magician’s island, his services, and, most importantly, the Trials that were to take place. Pidge told of deception and trickery and twists and turns that no one could see coming. Some of the Trials were even deadly, she said. Leave it to Pidge to find death and danger a valid marketing campaign.

But she also said that the Trials opened new areas of knowledge for people. Powers were granted to those successful in these Trials, even if they did not ultimately win the Game. 

Keith would be lying if he said that he wasn’t at least a little taken with these ideas - who wouldn’t be? 

But then he would shake his head, trying to dislodge the thoughts, and shove past the unwavering Pidge. He would drown out the ideas blooming in his mind by training even harder in his duties at the Garrison. 

But he could not deny that Pidge’s tactics were working; he could feel seeds of curiosity being planted in his mind and slowly growing to consume his thoughts until he was overcome with the desire to discover whether these legends were true. Could the Magician really summon rain or snow from the sky with a snap of his fingers? Could he really suck the soul from your body with just a touch? Keith almost didn’t want to know. Yet there was still that ceaseless itching need for the truth in his mind, after so many tales of this wondrous Magician.

On the fifth day, the last day to send a response to the Magician’s letter, he gave up. He confronted Pidge after piloting class at the Garrison and shoved the letter he’d written to the Magician notifying his presence at the Game. “Here!” he exclaimed. “I did it. I gave in! I’m going to the Game of Marvels. Happy now?”

A huge, lopsided grin spread across the girl’s face. She took the piece of parchment from Keith’s hand and read it over quickly. “Yes,” she said, handing it back to him, “yes, I am very happy. You shouldn’t have put it off until the last minute, though. Now send it to the post right away. Hopefully, it’ll reach the Magician on time.”

Keith wearily obeyed, too tired to deal with her strong-willed personality any longer. He addressed the letter to the island of Altea, headed to the post office just down the hill of the Garrison, and hurried back up to his dorm so he could rest. Sometimes Pidge would sneak into his room and give a mini-presentation on the wonders and horrors of the Game of Marvels, and he had lived in constant fear of them for the past five days.

All he could do was hope for the best that when he stepped onto the Magician’s private island he would be let in past the gates.

 

The next day Keith prepared for a three-month long vacation. He packed up all his things (which weren’t much), informed the Garrison and general store where he worked that he’d be gone for a while (conveniently leaving out where he was going), and bought a third-class ticket aboard a ship destined to sail for Altea that very morning. He was mostly surrounded my pompous folk rich enough to buy their own tickets instead of being personally invited. He got strange looks everywhere he went. What was an unknown, poor Garrison trainee doing on this ship of the wealthy and important, headed to a world of mysteries and beauty and sensation that he could never dream of visiting in his wildest fantasies? Honestly, he himself didn’t know. How had he gotten so lucky? Or ill-fated, depending on how you looked at it. Some people believed the Magician’s Game was one of danger and horrors unimaginable. Maybe it was both a world of dreams and nightmares.

It took two days to reach Altea, and Keith spent almost the entire trip staring out at the churning gray ocean, wondering what Trials awaited him. 

The rest of the time he stayed locked up in his tiny, cramped cabin, trying not to get seasick. He only came out to eat two meals a day at the cheapest restaurant aboard the ship, which was still almost over his budget. Being a worker at the general store didn’t pay that much, obviously.

Finally, the ship docked at an island of indescribable beauty. The skies were bright and clear and sun-filled, the trees tall and a luscious green, the water perfectly still blue glass. The ship sliced through the water, disrupting the sea's surface like breaking a mirror. Keith hung so far over the ship’s rail that he was certain he would fall into the ocean, but he couldn’t seem to care; the island’s beauty held him captive, a spell having descended upon the entire ship from its beauty.

A path led into the trees, winding from the harbor through the pearlescent, powdery white sand of the beach, and disappearing into the trees and underbrush of the forest. Keith assumed this led to the Magician’s own town where the Game of Marvels was said to take place.

He ran down to his cabin to retrieve his luggage but didn’t make it past the door. His key wasn’t working, no matter how much he twisted it in the lock or shoved on the door. He peered through the circular window into his cabin, but couldn’t find anything amiss. He tried picking the lock to no avail. He growled and kicked the door, wondering what he was going to do now.

What was he thinking, coming here? None of this was worth the adventure, the prize, or anything else that might happen inside the gates to the Magician’s town.

Eventually, he had to give up on trying to enter his cabin, resigning himself to the idea that he would just have to steal some clothes from one of the aristocrats' cabins.

But before he could see if he was successful with picking the locks on someone else’s cabin, he felt a hand grabbing onto his forearm and dragging him away. He cried out and twisted around to see who had grabbed him.

It was a tall, muscular man, the top half of his face covered in a white mask. A tuft of white hair fell over the mask, though, and Keith dimly noted that he had dark gray eyes. 

“Hey!” he shouted. “What are you doing? Let me go, I have an invitation, look.”

The man paused, for just a moment, but it was long enough for Keith to pull out his ticket and shove it in the man’s face. “Here! From the Magician himself.”

The man plucked the ticket from his hand and scrutinized it, looked back up at Keith, then back at the ticket. Then finally, he handed the ticket back to Keith and shrugged, a smile tugging at his lips. Keith let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in. 

He passed the strange man quickly, stepping onto the pale sand and running after the other people coming for the Game. Luckily the man didn’t follow him.

It took about half an hour to reach the large silver-and-blue gates of the Magician’s personal town. The aristocrats complained the whole way about having to trek through the forest, getting their expensive clothes dirty and torn, lugging their heavy baggage themselves. Keith may not like the Magician, but he had to admit that he enjoyed seeing the nobles suffer.

Like everything else about the Magician, the town was breathtaking. The gates leading to it were decorated with the Magician’s familiar emblem, the blue lion with a crown of ice above it. He handed his ticket to the masked person standing guard at the gate, bracing himself to be kicked out. But the guard just handed the ticket back to Keith, and he pocketed it. The guard pushed open the gate, and Keith was swept up with the aristocrats into the town. 

The town itself seemed to be engulfed in a perpetual darkness, lights glowing warmly from small huts and houses. Keith dimly wondered whether people actually lived there, or if it was all just for show. The sky didn’t show a trace of stars, giving it an eerie look; even if the town had street and house lights, shouldn’t there at least be a glimmer of stars up there?

Farther away from the town, on top of a small mountain, was an enormous castle. A tall, crumbling bridge connected it to the rest of the island, and Keith wondered how it was still being supported, but maybe it was just a glamour. He overheard one of the nobles whisper that it was the hotel where they’d be staying, where the Magician also lived, but Keith found that hard to believe, considering its lavish appearance, but then again, everything else about the Magician was extravagant. It almost looked like one of Pidge’s made-up spaceships she liked to daydream about.

It might have been better if he hadn’t been allowed past the gates, he thinks distantly. This event will most definitely change his life, he knows that for sure. Whether it be for better or for worse, he has no idea, and for now, all he can do is speculate.

 

It turns out he didn’t need to bring his own clothes at all. When he’s led to his rooms (which are bigger than he would ever be able to dream of) he finds a walk-in closet full of more clothes than he’s ever owned. Suits and pants and dress shirts made of fine velvet and silk and satin. Accessories like hats and shoes and some dress items he can’t name made of leather and weaved in with beads and jewels probably more expensive than his own life.

He wanders his rooms, running his hands along the gilded settees, the lavish velvet curtains, the smooth wooden drawers and shelves. He even has his own bathroom that is bigger than his dorm back at the Garrison. He decides to take advantage of it by taking the longest, hottest shower he’s had since... well, never. The Garrison lives on rationed hot water, and even then it’s lukewarm at best. And he’s only ever taken a shower that was six minutes long.

When Keith finally steps out of the steaming hot bathroom, he just wants to collapse on the impossibly soft mattress and fall fast asleep, but a familiar crest of silver-and-blue makes him pause and turn to the table by the bedside. He picks up the Magician’s letter and tears it open.

_Congratulations, you made it past the gate! You were promised more instructions when you arrived, and here they are. The second part of the Game of Marvels is the Magician’s Ball, held tonight at 21:00._

__

_The next morning will be the First Trial. You still have to chance to forfeit from the Game before then, but after that, you will see the Game through until the end. There will be five Trials in the Game, spanning three months. Each Trial will last from a few days to several weeks, depending on the difficulty of each Trial. The First Trial will be held from July 29th through July 30th. Your first clue is enclosed in this envelope._

A blue slip of paper falls out as from the envelope as if on cue. Keith picks it up and reads it about a million times, but it still doesn’t make any sense. Are these “clues” supposed to be helpful? Because they aren’t, not one bit. They could just be random words, for all he knows.

_The First Trial will entail:_

_A pearl, a fountain, a staircase, another world._  


That’s it. Nothing else, not a location or a name, just eight measly words? Does he need to find this pearl? Does he need to enter an alternate world, and how does he go about doing that? He’s about to crumple the slip of paper in his hand before realizing he might need it later. He begrudgingly folds it up and pockets it.

Keith glances at the clock ticking above the thin veil separating the bedroom and the sitting room. He has his own _sitting room,_ a part of him still marvels, but he pushes the wonder from his mind.

Half past 20:00. He should prepare for the Magician’s Ball, then, even though he would much rather curl up under the many blankets on his bed and maybe sleep through the entire First Trial. 

But instead, he stands up and wanders to the closet. He finds a less fancy red jacket with tailcoats with a black dress shirt and slacks. He ignores the elaborate cufflinks and fancy hats, not wanting to appear like a wannabe aristocrat.

He goes downstairs at 20:50, not exactly sure where the ballroom is, but he figures he’ll find his way there eventually. 

“Are you lost?” 

Keith turns around to see a woman with dark skin, pointed ears, and fluffy white hair tilting her head at him inquiringly. She wears the mask of what Keith has come to realize identifies her employment to the Magician. She wears a flowing blue dress woven with intricate silver filigree.

“Are you looking for the ballroom? It’s down that hallway and to your left, then down a set of stairs. I’m heading there right now.”

“Am I too early?” he asks.

The performer shakes her head and pulls him down the corridor. “Come on, I’ll show you myself. Look, there are a few more prodigies and guests ahead of us.”

The ballroom is huge, maybe larger than all of Keith’s rooms combined. It’s brightly lit by many beautiful chandeliers and candles scattered throughout the room. Prodigies, as the masked woman called them, dart about making last-minute decisions and whispering to each other. Some aristocrats huddle in groups, hiding behind fans and purses, seeming to not know what to do. Some search the room as if looking for the Magician himself. 

“He should be arriving soon,” the prodigy says, reading his mind. He’d almost forgotten she’s still next to him, surveying the rest of the prodigies. “He likes to make dramatic entrances. My name’s Allura, by the way. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Ah... Keith.” He doesn’t know whether to shake her hand, bow or do something else as a way of formal greeting. But she just nods and turns to another prodigy and starts giving him orders in hushed tones.

Keith blushes and turns away awkwardly. He doesn’t belong here, he knows that, but he doesn’t need it to be shoved in his face so obviously.

The ballroom slowly fills up, lords and ladies parading around in their finery and gossiping amongst each other, prodigies chattering and some dancing with each other. Maybe it’s just his imagination, but if Keith squints, he can almost see the prodigies blinking in and out of existence with every step. One moment they’re there, solid and real, and then for just a heartbeat they’re... not. Like ghosts.

Keith shakes his head. Just another mystery of the Magician, he supposes.

The people milling about the ballroom slowly begin to dance as the musicians in the corner of the room pick up their instruments and start playing a soft, otherworldly tune. Couples pair up and float across the dance floor, completely in sync with each other. Some aristocrats even dance with the Magician’s prodigies. And just like that, the ball has officially begun, and Keith feels more alone than ever. 

He stows away to a corner of the room, hiding in the shadows, sometimes stealing a glance at the great grandfather clock standing diligently next to him, wondering when he might be able to sneak back to his chambers without being noticed.

Just as he’s about to dash up the stairs without a care for who sees him, the lights dim considerably, and a portion of the room is lit up by an unseen source of light. Keith blinks and glares up at the spotlight that has foiled his plans of getting some comfortable sleep.

A ring of ice descends from a hatch in the ceiling that Keith hadn’t noticed before. And lounging on that ring of ice like a goddamn _supermodel,_ is none other than the Magician himself. Keith’s never seen him before in his life, but he knows it’s him from the elaborate mask covering the top half of his face, and the blue sparkling waistcoat, and the long, snug blue jacket hugging his lean frame, and the dazzling beauty of his entire demeanor and appearance. He’s even wearing a silk top hat, dammit.

Keith hates him and all his opulence and glory immediately.

The Magician leaps down from his ring of ice with the proud grace of a cat and makes his way through the crowd, grinning and charming each and every one of his guests with his beguiling smile and bright, devious eyes. He has the same smooth brown skin as Allura does, as well as the pointed ears and white hair.

And even though he stops to kiss almost every lady’s hand, or wink at almost every gentleman, he doesn’t pay them more mind than that. He breezes past them all until he’s standing in the middle of the room, arms spread wide in welcome, or maybe in a _“look at me”_ kind of gesture. 

“Welcome all, to the Magician’s Game of Marvels! You have been lucky enough to have made all the way here, and will participate in my series of Trials to win the prize of your greatest desire. I know, it’s almost too far-fetched to believe, but” - he shrugs in a way one might almost call sheepish - “I am the Magician, after all.”

Many of the aristocrats swoon. Keith scoffs and crosses his arms.

The Magician goes on, and is it just Keith, or is he subtly making his way across the room to Keith’s corner next to the grandfather clock?

“And now, you’ve been invited to my ball! Consider yourselves blessed.” He tips his hat charmingly. “My special guest, you are especially lucky. And now, I won’t take any more of your time. Get on with your ball! Musicians, how about something electrifying?”

The lead musician, a masked man with a cello, nods and begins playing a dramatic, fast-paced piece that can’t possibly be played with entirely acoustic instruments.

When Keith looks back up, he almost jumps out of his own skin to see the Magician standing right in front of him, a devilish grin on his face and a gleam in his eyes that Keith can’t decipher. 

“Keith! So glad to see you could make it.”

Keith steps out of the shadow of the grandfather clock, straightening his jacket self-consciously. “How... what... Why did you invite me? How do you even know me?”

The Magician tips his head to the side, eyes softening. “Of course you wouldn’t remember. It was so long ago.”

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Never mind. That’s not important now. You’re here now, aren’t you?”

“Um, yes, unless you aren’t actually the Magician, or this isn’t actually Altea.”

The Magician laughs and takes Keith’s hand in his, leading him onto the dance floor. He rests a hand on the small of Keith’s back and guides him through the intricate steps of a dance he’s never heard of. But then again, he isn’t a dancer, and he’s surprised he hasn’t already stumbled and tripped over his own feet.

The Magician leads him through the ballroom, past other whirling couples, some of which are glaring at Keith in barely concealed jealousy. 

“Don’t worry about them,” the Magician says, bringing him back to this present... reality, though it may not seem like it.

“Come on, I’ll show you a place we won’t be bothered,” the Magician continues, and begins leading Keith away from the other dancers. But there isn’t a door anywhere nearby, and the ballroom is packed with guests and prodigies.

Then Keith blinks, and everyone else is gone. _Poof._ Just like that. He looks around, but instead of finding dancing couples around them, or dim chandeliers, he finds that they’re standing in the middle of an empty rose garden. A large fountain with sparkling, ethereal water bubbles happily in the middle in a circle of benches. Roses of all different colors glow with a fluorescent light, and every time the Magician pulls Keith into a spin, their dizzying colors swirl together in his vision. None of this should be possible, but if Keith didn’t know any better, he’d assume the Magician just transported him to another realm. One made of light and bright colors and zero gravity, because when Keith looks down he sees that his feet aren’t touching the ground. They’re just floating a few inches above it, even though it still feels completely solid underneath Keith’s feet.

The Magician laughs at his confusion, a high, bubbly sound. “It’s a little talent of mine. Comes in handy when you want to be alone.”

Keith frowns at the complete nonchalance he displays over an overwhelming power such as his. “‘A little talent’ of yours. Right. No sweat, just something anyone could do, eh?”

“No, of course not.” The Magician leads him in a complicated step sequence, causing all of Keith’s thoughts to focus on not tripping and falling into the fountain. “I’m the Magician, I can do anything.”

“Keep saying that, it might become less egotistical,” Keith mutters under his breath. 

“It’s not bragging if you know it’s true.”

“Yes, it is.”

“On another note,” the Magician says, making a sharp turn in time with the music that they can still inexplicably hear despite being in an alternate world, “how do you feel about the Trials? I know you’re reluctant about the Game at best.” 

Keith answers honestly. “I don’t know yet.”

The Magician grins. “Either way, I believe in you. I didn’t invite you here without thinking you would make it.”

His eyes flicker with disappointment when Keith doesn’t react to his flirtatious smile. He turns to another tactic. “How’s this? I’ll give you a hint for the First Trial.”

Keith is reluctant to accept his help, but he has to admit that he needs it. He still doesn’t understand much of the scarce words written on his slip of paper, but now, with this alternate world, and even the fountain gurgling right next to them, he might have an idea.

The Magician doesn’t wait for a response. He dives right in. “Alright, I’ll give you this: you know we’re in another world, of course. Think of it as a parallel to our own world, just with a few added... bonuses. I really do have a rose garden like this, albeit with a little less fluorescent flowers.

“Anyway, I like to think that some things in the world are similar to the ones in this world. Like pearls. But not staircases. I imagine staircases would be very different in this other world.”

Keith stares in bewilderment at him. “Was that supposed to help? Because it didn’t.”

The Magician laughs. “I promise it’ll all make sense in due time.”

It’s at that moment that Keith makes a decision. He will win this Game of Marvels if it’s the last thing he will ever do. And it’s not about the prize, or even the glory and fame, but just so he can prove to the Magician that he can pass all his stupid tests. He will not be torn down by some cocky, rich con artist who just so happens to have really pretty dark blue eyes and... Keith shakes his head and looks away, certain that he’s staring.

The Magician breaks their complicated dance just to jump on top of the fountain’s edge. He bows and offers his hand. Keith, still vexed, yet undeniably a little charmed, accepts it and steps up next to him.

Without warning, the Magician steps onto the water, but instead of falling right through and looking like an idiot (which Keith would have liked), the water seems to smooth out and solidify, until the entire fountain is covered with a thin layer of ice that couldn’t possibly support both of their weight, but Keith has come to accept these small miracles courtesy of the Magician. Keith follows him, and they resume their dance.

“You never said why you invited me,” he says.

The Magician flashes another disarming smile, but it seems a bit more forced this time. “Wow, you really don’t remember, huh? Well, I guess I can’t blame you for that.... Never mind.”

Keith stares at him quizzically, but the Magician doesn’t elaborate, so he begrudgingly drops the subject.

Eventually, though, the Magician pauses in their dance, jumps down from the fountain, and walks over to a rose bush, plucking a bright red rose. At his touch, the rose slowly begins to turn blue, and he hands it to Keith when it’s halfway transformed from red to blue, so swirls of the blue encompass the red. It’s oddly beautiful. Keith breathes in the scent of the flower, and is it just his imagination, or does it smell like smoke and morning dew? It does. 

The Magician starts to walk away, his form flickering like those of his prodigies. Just as he’s almost disappeared, he turns back and tips his hat at Keith.

“Oh, and... the name’s Lance, by the way.”

Keith stays staring after the Magician for a long time until the rose garden background has faded away back to the now empty ballroom. _Lance._ The name sounds familiar, like someone he might have dreamed about once. But only a dream, so fleeting and insubstantial.

He twirls the blue-and-red rose around with his fingers, studying its nuances, the thorns and interwoven streaks of colors. In some places, the petals are even a mingled purple.

He’s only snapped out of his musings when the last of the chandeliers flicker out for the night. He’s about to go up the stairs to his chambers before he realizes that he’s forgotten where they are.


	2. The First Trial

Keith eventually found his chambers again; after hours of wandering the hotel trying to be inconspicuous with his strange red-and-blue rose and the obvious confusion etched on his features. He was too proud to ask a prodigy for directions back to his rooms, despite there being many kind people he could have asked on the way. 

Well, he did find his rooms in the end, by then completely exhausted and pissed off; at the Magician for being so mysterious and confusing, at himself for accepting his invitation, at Pidge for convincing him to accept his invitation in the first place - 

He’d been snapped out of his mind rant when he caught sight of a familiar vase of red roses, and from there he found his rooms again. He’d immediately collapsed on the enormous bed, still wearing his fancy clothes and clutching the red-and-blue rose to his chest.

 

He wakes up at dawn, curled up on the middle of the bed, blinking lazily up at the satin curtains framing the large window right by his bedside. The sunlight is watery and pink, and its light hasn’t yet burned out that of the moon and stars’.

Keith stays staring at the rising sun a little while longer, trying to comprehend everything that happened last night. 

He looks down at his clenched fist, expecting to find the red-and-blue rose crumpled and ruined, but it’s still perfectly intact, blooming like it hasn’t even been plucked. It’s lost a bit of the radiance it had in the Magician’s other realm, but that’s about it.

For some reason, this makes Keith angry. He tries to tear its petals off, but they just grow back, prettier than ever.

He untangles himself from the blankets and attempts to crush to stubborn flower under his foot, but it pops back to life, shaking off his rough treatment. 

Eventually, Keith gives up and decides on the next best thing. He kicks the flower under his bed. No matter how much he hates the rose and how it reminds him of the Magician, he can’t bring himself to throw it out the window. 

It’s around 6:00, the time when he would usually be starting his training at the Garrison. Instead, he’s pacing his new rooms, running his hands through his hair and getting worked up over the Magician’s cryptic words.

He misses Pidge. She would be able to understand these clues, he thinks. He misses normal, mundane, everyday life. For the millionth time in the past few days, he regrets ever replying to the Magician’s letter.

_The name’s Lance, by the way._ The Magician has a name, he reminds himself. Why did he tell Keith? The Magician had never told anyone his real name before, as far as Keith can tell. 

Keith still can’t see him as a _Lance._ He is the Magician, and always will be. Too magical and otherworldly for a real name. 

Keith unfolds the slip of blue paper, reading the clues once again. _The First Trial will entail: A pearl, a fountain, a staircase, another world._ And the Magician’s added words: _I like to think that some things in the world are similar to the ones in this world. Like pearls. But not staircases. I imagine staircases would be very different in this other world._

Well, it fits with the official clues, sort of. Keith crumples the paper and steels his nerves. Time to stop feeling sorry for himself. Time to step up and do something to reach his goal.

He doesn’t bother changing out of the clothes he wore last night. He closes the window curtains with a swish, blocking out any sunlight. 

Keith has his hand on the doorknob when he suddenly turns back to stare at the place where he’d kicked the rose under his bed. He doesn’t know why, but he deliberates for a moment; something drawing him to the multi-colored rose. 

At the last moment, he dashes toward the bed, snatches up the rose, and pockets it. Then he shuts the door silently behind himself and makes his way toward the Magician’s rose garden.

 

It doesn’t take as much time as he expected to find the rose garden. Maybe the Magician is working on his side after all, because the hotel/castle almost seems to work with him to help him find the garden.

The Magician was right; the garden is exactly like the one in the other realm, just with less glowing roses, though it is home to many beautiful flowers. There’s the same fountain they danced on last night, and Keith almost wants to jump up on the edge and see if he can walk on the water. 

Instead, he surveys the fountain, searching for anything out of the ordinary. All he finds is regular water, regular marble, and not even a trace of a coin at the bottom. 

He wanders the rose garden, not sure what he’s looking for anymore. No staircases, no pearls, no other worlds... 

Then he gets an idea, as clear and sudden as a bolt of lightning. He digs out the blue-and-red rose, twirling it between his index finger and thumb. Maybe it’s just the sun, but its petals seem to glow a little brighter. He takes a step toward the fountain, experimentally, and one of the petals unmistakably brightens, like a searchlight. Then it dims just as suddenly.

Nevertheless, Keith smiles and takes another tentative step towards the fountain. Another petal brightens again, and they keep doing so every time he moves towards the fountain.

Soon Keith’s in a full-on sprint back toward the fountain, not bothering to dodge the poor roses that get trampled in his path.

He skids to a stop before he falls face-first into the fountain. The rose’s glow has faded now, but he’s certain that the fountain is the key.

He hesitates for a moment, then rips off a petal and drops it into the fountain. He doesn’t know why he did that, but something in him feels like it’s the right thing to do.

For a second the fountain doesn’t react, but all of a sudden, a flash of color appears in the smooth crystal water. It’s different from when the Magician transitioned into the other realm. That one was smooth and silent; Keith barely realized he was shifting into another world entirely.

This “transition” as Keith has begun to call it, is full of color and sound. Bright brushstrokes of color paint the sky and ground and rose bushes, and Keith can feel a tickling sensation running through his entire body. A rush of air comes from the fountain, ruffling his hair and clothes. 

The colors envelop him in a warm cocoon, and when they subside, he’s staring at the rose garden that he danced in with the Magician last night. Phantom hues of blue and green and purple and orange still float in his vision, but they’re soon replaced with those of the brightly-lit roses and shining fountain water of the magic realm.

Keith looks down at the Magician’s red-and-blue rose - which has returned to its original fluorescent hue - as if the flower is proof of his return to the other world.

He pumps his fist in the air in triumph, suddenly overcome with a sense of pride and accomplishment he hasn’t felt in years.

“See, I knew you could do it! I believed in you.” 

Keith glances up and almost falls into the fountain when he sees the Magician perched on top of the decorative lion statue at the top. He’s certain he wasn’t there two seconds ago.

He is wearing a simpler outfit from the one last night; he’s kept the jeweled white mask, but discarded the top hat, thankfully, and traded the waistcoat and long jacket for a loose tunic cinched at the waist and a floppy pointed hat. Keith doesn’t know if he’s wearing it for the irony or something else, but the way it droops over his eyes and how he pushes it back up his brow every other minute or so makes Keith glad that he is. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

The Magician shrugs, standing up on the lion statue with little effort despite how small the perch is. He peers down at Keith with a peculiar expression his face. “Well, you’ve made it past the fountain, which is more than I can say for most of the other players. They haven’t gotten help from the Magician himself.”

Keith glances around, certain that a curious noble will poke their head out from one of the rose bushes. “Shouldn’t you be giving every one of your players an equal chance? What if someone finds out you’re showing favoritism?”

The Magician pulls the pointed blue hat low over his face, hiding his expression, but Keith thinks he sees the hint of a smile. “Ah, you accuse me of favoritism? Well, I can’t exactly deny it. You’ve left an impression upon me. But you know you were already my favorite before even the Game started. It’s why you’re my special guest, after all. It’s almost expected of me to show you more attention." He jumps seamlessly down from the fountain’s statue and into the water. “And besides, you like it, don’t you?”

Keith crosses his arms and looks away. “I’d like it better if you just left me alone.”

The Magician shrugs. “Suits you, I suppose. I’ll leave you here, then.”

He sits down cross-legged right in the middle of the fountain, an expression of utter peacefulness gracing his features. His long limbs stick out from his lean frame like a spider’s, and he doesn’t seem to mind the water soaking through his pants and tunic. He doesn’t move at all in the next few seconds, and Keith begins to wonder if his soul has just left his body. Pidge had talked about him pulling some stunt like that once. 

But then he blinks and stares at Keith with an intensity that makes him uncomfortable. “Well, aren’t you going to start searching for that pearl?”

Keith laughs and points an accusatory finger at the Magician. “So it is a pearl I’m supposed to be looking for! You admit it!”

The Magician winces. “Oh, you weren’t supposed to know that much. I’m making it almost too easy for you.”

Keith grins, surveying the rose garden. “Now I just have to figure out what you meant by the staircases....”

He chooses a random direction and starts running, leaving the Magician to sit cross-legged in the fountain. He’s beginning to think maybe this First Trial won’t be as hard as he initially thought when his foot catches on something, and he falls sprawled halfway up a steep hill. He hears a soft pop just before he rolls onto his side and tastes a mouthful of dirt and grass.

He sits up, trying to remember what he was thinking before he fell, but all he feels is a headiness like cobwebs coating his thoughts. He glances down at his foot, searching for the source of the strange noise, and grimaces when he sees his ankle twisted out at a strange angle. He reaches out and runs his hand tentatively over the tightened skin, and snaps his hand back when he doesn’t even feel a hint of pain. Almost instinctively, he holds his ankle in place and pops it back into place. He tests his foot, poking it and twisting it around, puzzled over why it doesn't feel like anything has changed. Is it the magic of the other realm, protecting him against pain?

Keith glances around, searching for whatever tripped him. Nothing but grass and dirt and a few scattered wildflowers. _Probably just a dip in the ground,_ he thinks.

Either way, he can still stand with no protest from his ankle, so after a few hesitant steps, he’s back up and running again, having not learned his lesson. 

Soon he’s crested the hill and before he can even take a glance at what’s past that, he’s swept into another swirl of colors like the one from the fountain. He doesn’t struggle, just closes his eyes and lets the warm rays engulf him and transport him to wherever they want him. It’s unnerving, this way of transportation; no doubt about it, but when he opens his eyes, sane and intact, he silently thanks the strange wisps of color.

Sprawled out before him is a sight he never thought he’d see. Staircases _everywhere._ Moving and twisting and disappearing, with new ones to replace the ones lost. Some curve around others, some warp, and writhe like snakes. Some rise straight into the sky, to be lost in the clouds, while others sit still for minutes on end before jerking back into motion again. Keith stares transfixed, his forgotten red-and-blue rose still clutched in his hand, glowing softly.

Well, it’s certainly not what he’d been expecting.

Is this where he’s supposed to find the pearl? In this endless hellhole of stairways? Keith wants to just give up right then and there, but the smoldering hatred for everything the Magician stands for still burns brightly in his gut, and it’s about the only thing forcing him to put one foot after another, step onto a nearby staircase hovering near him, and descend into this strange land of... whatever the hell this is. 

Hell. Yes; maybe that’s what it is.

The flight of stairs carries him farther from the safety of the grassy hill, deeper into the winding red-and-black abyss. Before he can get lost further into the world, he catches hold of another passing staircase and climbs onto it, barely avoiding falling off the rail.

Keith lies on the steps for a few moments, panting. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he finally admits to himself. Despite the Magician’s guidance (if it can be called that) he doesn’t know where to even start with this Trial. He doesn’t know what this pearl is for, how he’s going to find it; he doesn’t even know if he’ll make it out alive. This world is one of confusion and trickery, and who knows if what he’s trying to achieve is even possible? It’s probably all just a wild goose chase.

“Pidge, if I survive this, I am going to personally drag you out here and make you experience this as I did,” he mutters, hands over his eyes. 

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. You haven’t even seen the worst of it.”

Keith sits bolt upright and finds himself staring face-to-face with the Magician. He’s still wearing that stupid floppy hat, but he’s added crystal earrings to the outfit as well. “You _again!_ Why won’t you just let me be?”

The Magician sits back on his haunches. “You needed help. I thought you’d like if I gave it.”

Keith laughs bitterly. “Right. Why are you _really_ here?”

“Plus the other players are being boring,” the Magician says, pouting. “Lots of them haven’t even gotten out of their chambers, and the others are just wandering my Castle without a clue to what they’re doing.” He shakes his head. “They’re rather disappointing, these ones. Except for you.”

“You just visited me ten minutes ago,” Keith growls. “You really don’t have anything better to do with your time than stalk my every move in your Game?”

The Magician frowns. “You've been here longer than you think. I checked in on you about half a day ago.”

Keith rockets to his feet. “ _What?_ No, that’s not possible; it’s only been about thirty minutes!”

The Magician shakes his head in disappointment. “I thought you knew already; things work differently here. Including time.”

Keith watches the stairs still shifting and rising like waves. “That can’t be... then how long is an hour?!”

The Magician shrugs and leans back against the staircase railing, appearing altogether unconcerned. “It’s flexible. One minute out there might be an hour here or vice versa.”

He flicks a finger in Keith’s general direction. “So it might do you good to get up and start searching for that pearl instead of lying here feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got many more troubles ahead of you, and this is only the beginning.”

Despite how much he might want to smack the Magician upside the head, Keith knows he’s right. He takes a moment to assess the mess of staircases winding above his head, then sighs and looks back down at his hands. When he glances back up again, the Magician is gone.

“Typical,” he mutters. “Does help mean something else in this world, or are you just incompetent?”

 

He did not sit around formulating a plan, neither did he lie around waiting for an idea to arise. He decided that it was best to jump into the action right away and figure it out on the way.

He snatches up the Magician’s rose from where it had fallen out of his pocket and starts running up the staircase that even now is beginning to spiral downwards. Keith doesn’t know what lies below the maze of shadows and steps, and he doesn’t think he wants to know.

He grabs ahold of an overhanging railing and throws himself over it onto a crumbling staircase. Chunks of stone fall away where his feet land, and he just barely manages to jump onto another flight of steps before it collapses into dust.

Thankfully this stairway doesn’t break away or start spiraling further into the dark pit below, so he allows himself a moment to catch his breath.

The Magician’s flower is glowing just a little brighter in the dimness, so Keith takes that as a good sign.

He takes in his surroundings. Nothing majorly different, except he seems a little closer to the dull sky. Maybe that’s where he should head.

Keith jumps onto a set of stairs moving sideways, then scrambles to grab onto another flight twisting upwards. As he clings to the ornate railing to keep from falling fifteen feet and dying, he catches sight of a flash of blue silk.

He squints, then growls when he sees the Magician perched on a set of helical stairs. He flashes a bright smile, and just as quickly as he appeared, he’s flickered out again, like a candle flame.

Keith grumbles a few curse words under his breath and starts climbing again, step by step.

The red-and-blue rose is slowly regaining its original shining luster, so Keith assumes he’s on the right track. He hastens his pace until he’s almost running.

He becomes almost an expert in jumping from stairway to stairway, in hanging from railings and throwing himself onto a resting spot, in dodging and ducking under staircases that would’ve run him over or thrown him off his perch in the next few... hours? days? He can’t tell through the rush of adrenaline and excitement.

Every so often he catches a glimpse of something that gives him pause: the flash of a jewel embedded in a white mask, or a floppy blue hat, but he shakes it off just as quickly and moves on, slowly making his way towards the sky, away from the pressing darkness of the chasm below.

Finally, he slumps against a sturdy staircase railing, allowing himself a moment to catch his breath and get his bearings. The Magician’s rose is glowing brighter than ever, almost seeming to absorb the sun’s light, however watery and lackluster it may be.

Keith tears a single blue petal off and lets it flutter to the base of the steps absentmindedly. He stares up at the sky, lulled by the peace of the pale sunlight and sluggish motions of the staircase he’s resting on.

The longer he gazes at the sky though, the more surreal it looks. Not thoroughly consistent with that of the real world. He can’t place exactly what’s wrong with it, just little things. The color is almost too pale, not really blue, but not gray or any color the sky should be either. It doesn’t even seem to stay the same color. More like shifting shades of a dull color he’s never seen before.

And the wisps of clouds aren’t floating across the sky, just sort of hovering. Practically quivering with anticipation.

Keith stands, peering up at the sky. The clouds seem to be obscuring something - a fold in the sky, like a crease in a wrinkled dress.

He searches the area for a nearby flight of stairs. Only one reaches farther into the sky - a thin, rickety one that barely seems to be able to hold up its own weight, let alone Keith’s. Plus, it’s more than ten feet from the staircase he’s resting on now. 

Keith sighs, then perches on the railing. He waits for his staircase to drift as close as it can to the other one (which is still pretty far), then closes his eyes and jumps.

He’s airborne for just a few seconds before his arm slams into the edge of a crumbling railing. His eyes snap open and he scrabbles for purchase on the railing before he can tumble twenty feet down to a set of stone steps.

He stays hanging over the edge like that for a few moments, then scrambles onto the first step.

He doesn’t let himself catch his breath before he’s racing up the stairs towards the sky until he’s on the last decaying step, so close to the false sky that he can practically see his fingers brushing the top.

Keith stands on the tips of his toes, grasping for the clouds that are just out of his reach. He almost loses his balance once, but he doesn’t notice, too wrapped up in trying to touch the fake clouds. He’s positive they’re not real now; viewing them from so close up he can see how they’re shiny and more substantial than a cloud should be. 

He jumps and lunges and strains, to no avail. Finally, Keith kicks the thin railing in frustration, cursing his smaller stature, and the dilapidated staircase that lacks just a few more steps, and the Magician again and his stupid Trials for the thousandth time since yesterday. In his anger, he tosses the Magician’s rose (which is shining brilliantly, but what help does that do now?) at the sky. It falls back to his feet harmlessly, of course.

Except, a single petal catches on one of the false clouds. Like it’s caught in a tree branch. He reaches up to grab it, but again, it’s just barely out of his reach. 

He jumps up, not really expecting for his fingertips to brush anything, but when they actually do wrap around something solid and real, he almost immediately lets it go from the utter shock at having succeeded.

He never thought he’d be able to experience hanging from a cloud, but, well, here he is. It’s slippery and smooth, and he has to cling to it for dear life for a while until it seems to soften and split under his hands.

Keith involuntarily lets out a screech of surprise, certain that he’s going to go plummeting to his death, but instead he lands roughly back on the rickety staircase. He clings to the railing, waiting for the stairs’ rocking to stop.

When he looks back up at the false sky he’s torn a hole through, he’s almost blinded by a small object shining in the middle of the dark shaft that he’s torn open. The pearl, he assumes.

Once again, he stands on the tips of his toes, reaching out for the pearl. And though it looks like it’s lying deep in the darkness, his hand closes easily around the small glowing object. He lands steadily back on the staircase, which barely sways under his weight.

His fist is white from clutching the pearl so tightly, afraid it’ll slip from his fingers like water. It’s larger than an average pearl and definitely brighter. He wonders what light it’s reflecting in this dark, dull world; or maybe it’s just glowing from the inside; its own brilliance to combat the darkness.

Keith wastes no time in placing the pearl safely in his pocket and beginning the long journey back down to the maze of stairs. He doesn’t make it far before he catches sight of a few wisps of colors, like the ones that transported him to this world in the first place.

He lets them find him sitting on the thick railing of a sturdy stairway, his hand in his pocket clutching the pearl he spent so much effort to retrieve. When their warm embraces meet him, Keith welcomes them expectantly.

He opens his eyes to find the now-familiar fountain bubbling cheerfully in the middle of the rose garden. Night has fallen in this world, making the bright colors of the roses and plants catch the eye even more in comparison to the diluted or dark colors of the realm he just escaped.

The glowing flowers and the soft babbling of the fountain only remind Keith of how tired he is. It feels as if he hasn’t slept in a week, and he knows what that feels like.

In short, it makes you feel like shit.

He slumps against the fountain, unconcerned for now on how he’s going to get back to the real world since the wisps of color are now nowhere to be seen.

Keith almost falls asleep on the stairs right there, but he’s shaken awake when he feels the sharp pang of someone’s shoe connecting with his ribcage.

He rubs his side and glares up at the Magician, who’s peering down at him with a curious expression on his face, perched on the fountain’s edge. His mask is slightly askew, and his grin is bittersweet. 

Keith scrambles away from his close inspection. His hand subconsciously curls around the pearl in his pocket. The Magician sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “I almost hoped you would fail, yet here we are. Congratulations, and all that, I guess.”

“A great deal of help you were,” Keith snaps back. “You were mostly just a distraction.”

The Magician rests his head on his fist and winks. “Aw, you flatter me.”

Keith groans, utterly vexed now. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“Anyway,” the Magician says, holding out his hand, “you completed the first Trial. Only a few have been able to say that for themselves. Others” - he sighs in disappointment - “had to be sent back.”

Keith realizes that he’s still sitting on the grass with his entire body tense with apprehension. He resumes a more natural position on the grass, too proud to sit next to the Magician on the fountain when he gives him a strange look. “What did you do to your guests?”

The Magician smiles. “Oh, don’t give me that look; they failed to complete the Trial, so they couldn’t just stay here for the rest of the Game. I simply sent them packing. They’ll be leaving the island tonight.”

Keith relaxes only slightly. “You didn’t say that in your letter.”

“Well, then no one would have wanted to participate if they thought it was hopeless.”

“No, they’re just spineless idiots,” Keith mumbles. He doesn’t expect the Magician to hear him, so his laughs startles Keith.

“That may be true,” he admits. “That’s why I personally invite some people. People I have a bit more faith in. I... remember you were quite strong-willed.”

“Remember? You act as if you knew me before.” It makes Keith uncomfortable just to speak the idea. He still feels that tugging feeling in his mind, as if a certain memory is just out of his reach. It’s almost as bad as the countless time spent grasping for the sky in the other realm.

The Magician looks down at his hands, twisting them in each other like rags. “You don’t... yeah. Of course. My bad.” He smiles ruefully. 

The disarming, happy-go-lucky grin is back in a flash, making Keith wonder if it was just a trick of his imagination.

“Keep the flower, will you?” he says, standing up. “And the pearl might come in handy, too.”

His floppy blue hat is the last thing Keith sees before he’s enveloped by the thin tendrils of color again; they now feel more like shackles.

 

Lance doesn’t know why he was surprised when he didn’t recognize him. Why should he? The Alteans work their magic well. Memory is an ocean, but it can still be restrained. 

The way his eyes hardened with determination. The way he’ll do anything at all just to prove someone wrong. The gentle lift of his eyebrow when he’s about to do something reckless. How he squints when confused - as if the answer were just too far away to read. Memories, so many memories, crashing against his mind like waves on the craggy rocks of the island Lance used to live on.

Lance lies sprawled on the edge of the fountain, toying with a blue-and-red rose quite similar to the one he’d given to Keith. He taps his finger to the center, watching as the blue swirls slowly overtake the red. Then he takes away his hand and lets the original color slip back in.

He remembers the gray skies of that island, the tumultuous waves that always seemed to be caught in a storm, the dreary day-to-day lives of the citizens, and then the aristocrats that lorded over it all. And now he serves those very same aristocrats in his Games. 

For his freedom, it is worth it. Anything is worth it. He was trapped there, and he was desperate. 

And how can he give it up now? The grandeur, the fuss, the glamour? How can he trade all this for the life of groveling and invisibility he lived so many years before? He will not allow guilt to be forced upon him for the opulence he lives in now. Keith’s glares and snide remarks, or the spark of disdain in his eyes whenever he’s introduced to anything that would have cost all his belongings back on his little island.

The good thing is that this isn’t his little island anymore; it would do him good to remember that, Lance thinks scornfully. 

A single red flower petal flutters to the bottom of the fountain, where it dissolves into the water.

It’s been about an hour since Keith disappeared back into the real world - or it could have been two days ago, Lance doesn’t particularly notice or care. He’s spent the time lounging on the fountain thinking about days long past.

He should probably head back to the Castle of Lions, but... the night’s deep silence, and the glowing of the roses, and the soft bubbling of the fountain seem more welcoming than the quiet emptiness of his chambers right now.

He eventually drifts off to sleep, one leg dangling over the edge of the fountain, his face covered by the floppy pointed hat he borrowed from Allura, his blue-and-red rose clasped loosely in his hand. A moment of peace stolen from the chaos of the Game of Marvels.


	3. The Magician's Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's chapter is brought to you by _Spirited Away,_ the Madoka Magica OST, and some concept art...  
> 

When Keith returns to his rooms, night has fallen, and he finds out that what had seemed like a few hours in the other world was actually all the two days he had to complete the First Trial here.

He collapses on his bed as soon as he can, but can’t seem to find sleep despite how exhausted he is. There are too many hyperactive thoughts running around in his brain, so he sits up, turns on the lights, and further analyzes the pearl. The Magician said that the pearl would come in handy, but he can’t imagine how.

It’s been over a week since he left his island and he hasn’t even thought of writing to Pidge. A twinge of guilt forces him to set aside the pearl for now and scrounge through his drawers for some parchment and a pen.

He sits there at the large ornate desk in the sitting room for quite some time, wondering where to even start.

Eventually, he starts out with his current thoughts.

_Dear Pidge,_

_I know you’re going to kill me for not writing you sooner, but believe me when I say that things have been hectic._

_The Magician is everything I expected him to be and more: pretentious, annoying, and absurdly rich; not to mention flirtatious and stupidly handsome. He speaks solely in riddles, I swear. Can you believe that he was actually wearing a witch’s hat when I last saw him? I still don’t know if it was for ironic purposes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually thought it was fashionable._

_And his name is Lance. He said so himself - unless he was just toying with me._

_He acts like he knows me. Like he remembers me from somewhere. I might believe that he does (why else would he invite me to his Game?) but that’s impossible. Is he even human? I wouldn’t put it past that flawless tanned skin, white hair, pointed ears, and those jeweled masks he likes to hide behind. He takes almost too much joy in being mysterious._

_Well, long story short, he’s an asshole._

Keith describes his time from stepping onto the island of Altea through the First Trial in detail, until he’s written a three-page-long letter to send to his home Island of the Galra. Well, at least that will keep Pidge satisfied for a while. He spends a little too much paper ranting about the Magician, but he considers it too late to just scratch it out.

He seals the letter and sets it on his bedside stand; he’ll ask a prodigy where he can take it to later.

For now, he lies back on his bed and fiddles with the glowing pearl. Unlike the red-and-blue flower the Magician gave him, the pearl hasn’t lost any of its luster in the real world; if anything, it seems to shine brighter.

Keith wonders if there might be a latch somewhere where he can open it (it seems big enough to fit a little note or something in it) but there’s no doubt that its surface is as smooth as... well, a pearl’s.

He holds it up to the light, because hey, you never know what might trigger something. It does not react.

He tries to crush it under his feet, but it’s harder than concrete and only serves to bruise his feet even through his shoes.

If only Pidge were here; she could spout some science-y words and hack its secrets in two minutes. Or maybe he’s overestimating her genius. She’s better with calculations and theories that obey the laws of the universe, and Keith is pretty sure the Magician doesn’t give a damn about the laws of... well, anything, really.

He suddenly realizes that he’s still wearing the clothes from the Magician’s ball, and despite him having worn them for more than three days, they don’t have any wrinkles or stains on them. Still, he decides to change into something more comfortable that this red satin suit.

He’s already halfway unbuttoned the crisp dress shirt when he hears a now-familiar silvery accent from the other side of the room. “Do you really hate the hat?”

Keith almost tosses his shirt at the Magician in shock, but instead, he decides on panicking throwing the nearest object at him - which happens to be a sandal peacefully resting on a shelf before it’s life was turned upside down and used to harmlessly smack the Magician on the shoulder.

The Magician just picks up the shoe and places it back on the shelf. He sets Keith’s letter back on the desk he picked it up from. “I’ll decide not to take that personally.”

He’s not actually wearing the floppy blue hat, but he’s switched it for an equally ludicrous fedora of the same bright color, complete with a small blue-and-red rose almost exactly like Keith’s tucked into it. He’s wearing the jeweled mask, like usual. His intricately designed waistcoat fits snugly to his lean frame, and Keith is pretty sure his eyes linger for a bit too long there; the Magician definitely notices, judging from his smug half-smile.

“I’m getting really tired of you appearing out of nowhere with no warning whatsoever,” Keith says instead.

“You didn’t answer my question.” He seems legitimately curious to know what he thinks of his fashion sense. Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “I can tell if you’re lying, by the way.”

Keith groans. “Of course you can. Fine!” He has nothing to lose now. “Yes, it is stupid, but... it looks... good on you.”

He’s pretty sure he lost the last shred of dignity he still clung to while uttering that one sentence.

The Magician grins as if he knows that Keith meant to say more and with a snap of his fingers, the fedora has been replaced with the floppy witch’s hat. 

Keith’s pretty sure he’s blushing when he says, “You’d look better without the mask. Just... suggesting.” What does he have to lose now?

Surprisingly, the Magician shakes his head. “No, that’s part of my charm. You’ll just have to deal with it.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “All right, quit messing around. Why are you really here?”

The Magician stares out the window, contemplating his answer. “That depends. I _could_ be here to give you another clue, but I could also be here to annoy you, which you seem to think is my favorite pastime. And though it is quite fun to see you flustered and half-dressed, I have more urgent business to attend to elsewhere. So, the real question should be: Why am I spending my valuable time here in your rooms instead of, say, setting up the clues for the next Trials, or even just enjoying the Castle roof’s beautiful view? Which is totally breathtaking, by the way; you should check it out sometime.” He shrugs. “My answer: I don’t know. Yes, even the Magician doesn’t know the answers to everything.”

Keith just blinks. “What?”

The Magician frowns. “No need to look so confused, you didn’t even believe in the first place that I was all-powerful.”

“No, I mean... you don’t even have the clues for the upcoming Trials figured out yet?”

“Oh.... No, not completely.” The Magician smiles sheepishly. “I prefer spontaneity.”

Keith runs his hand over his face, exasperated.

“But either way,” the Magician says, extending a hand, “now that I’m here, I think I ought to show you around. A formal introduction, of sorts.”

Keith glances around the room. He doesn’t really have anything better to do, so he throws on the first tunic he finds, then marches past the Magician towards the door, ignoring the hand he still holds out.

The Magician catches up to him in a couple strides, unfazed. “I think I’ll show you around the Castle first,” he says. “Then perhaps the grounds around it. You’ve already seen the rose garden, but how about the beach? It’s even more beautiful at night, everything here is. That’s why the days are shorter.”

Keith glances back at him in surprise. “The nights are longer than the days?”

The Magician nods serenely. “It’s beneficial, even the villagers and my prodigies say so. And I always loved the nighttime, so it’s a win-win.”

They walk past a group of prodigies, each wearing masks and billowing blue robes. The Magician nods at each of them in turn, and they wave back.

“Oh, speaking of the villagers, I should show you around the place as well,” he muses. “They’re very welcoming and peaceful, and they have quite the variety of shops, restaurants, and wonders.”

Keith nods, already thinking about the place. He didn’t get to see much of it on his way to the Castle of Lions, just a few small houses and stores. He remembers lots of lanterns, flowers, and warm glowing lights, but nothing that compared to the Castle.

“Oh, and for the record,” the Magician continues, “the hat isn’t mine. It belongs to Allura, but she was kind enough to let me borrow it.”

Allura. Keith vaguely connects the name to the prodigy he saw on his first day here, the pretty woman with the kaleidoscope eyes. 

Then, staring at the Magician’s white-and-blue mask, adorned with embedded jewels and silver filigree that look like leaves and vines, he finally comes up with something to say.

“Why do you wear the mask, anyway?”

The Magician is taken aback by his question, Keith can tell. But he recovers quickly, like always, and laughs. “You don’t like it. Well, if you must know, I think it adds a bit of mystique and other-worldliness.”

“Don’t you think you already accomplish that with the” - Keith gestures to his pointed ears and white hair - “...Altean aspects of your appearance?”

The Magician frowns, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb over the sparkling blue earring hanging from one of his ears. “Well, those are just character traits of my race. Nothing special about that.”

Keith shrugs.

The Magician expertly navigates them through long corridors, grand staircases, and dark doorways until they’re standing outside on the crumbling bridge connecting the Castle to the village. There are a few skeletons of smaller bridges protruding from the sides of the cliff, leading out to sea, out to nothing.

The Magician is right, Keith begrudgingly admits to himself. The island is especially beautiful at night. The moon hangs heavy in the sky, shining with a light as bright as a streetlamp. The stars are just pinpricks compared to it. The beach’s pearly sand glimmers a silvery blue, and the waves move and roll like tar. The town’s glittering lights below complete the semblance to the beginning of a fairytale setting. 

“Do you want to see it?” the Magician asks, referring to the town.

Forgetting to act scornful, Keith nods, eyes wide with awe.

The Magician takes his hand, entwining his fingers with Keith’s. His usually so-expressive face stills into a simple look of peacefulness. In the flash of a moment, the moon’s light seems to grow and envelop them together. A spark of energy rushes down Keith’s spine, and next time he blinks, they’re standing in front of the gates to the Magician’s village.

The Magician drops his hand as soon as the gates come into sight, and Keith rubs his hand, trying to calm the remaining energy spikes that had extended to his hand. 

With a snap of the Magician’s fingers, the gates swing open, with little more than a whisper of protesting air to disrupt the night.

“There won’t be many folks around this time of night,” he explains as he leads them through the silent streets, “but other creatures like to inhabit the place instead.”

He gestures to a strange animal creeping in the shadow of a dormant restaurant; it looks like a cross between a squirrel and a cat, with glowing white fur. At the sight of two people wandering near it, it scampers farther into the darkness, its tail whipping behind it.

“What is that?” Keith asks, peering into the shadows to try to catch another glimpse of the strange creature.

“Just another of our residents here in the island of Altea,” the Magician says, grinning.

“Wow. This place is... really something.”

The Magician takes a deep breath of the chill night air. “It truly is.”

He leads Keith further into the town, past dark restaurants advertising exotic foods on the windows, alleyways lit by multi-colored lanterns, shops displaying trinkets and curiosities Keith can’t begin to understand the purpose for, and statues and fountains and plants practically glowing with magic.

Every so often they pass by people still out at this late hour, all of them dressed oddly and extravagantly. The Magician smiles at them, sometimes greeting them by name.

Keith catches sight of many different animals, each stranger than the last. Highlights include many more squirrel-cats, brightly-colored birds with flower patterns decorating their wings, and fluffy creatures with designs on their fur that look like a raccoon's markings, except for one large difference: they have huge, scaly red wings. All of these animals seem peaceful, shy, and nocturnal, save for a black dragon-esque creature that bites his hand when he tries to pet it.

The Magician laughs. “They may be cute, but they’re still wild animals.”

Keith glares at him and wipes away the blood welling in the teeth-shaped puncture wounds.

“Here.” The Magician takes Keith’s hand in his and places a gentle kiss on it, his lips upturned in a teasing smile.

When he looks back down at his hand, Keith’s surprised to see that the small cuts are gone. He stuffs his hand into his pocket and looks away, sure that he’s blushing. “It didn’t even hurt that much.”

The Magician stops abruptly at a psychic shop, staring into the window at a strange object - it’s shaped like a crescent moon, with two rows of elaborately decorated cards: one row spinning around the moon, the other whirling around a golden orb in the center of it all, embedded with jewels.

“Ah, a tarot wheel,” he cries. “These are supposedly extremely powerful, and incredibly rare. Even I haven’t seen one in ages.”

The shop is still open, so the Magician pushes open the door and begins touring the small place. It smells like incense, and it’s all cozily cluttered with papers, cards, and lots of spinning instruments.

The Magician rushes past all the strange trinkets straight to the tarot wheel.

“What do they do?” Keith asks, leaning over his shoulder to get a better view.

The Magician taps one of the cards, making the wheel spin into a blur. Then he plucks one of the cards from it. 

He raises an eyebrow and shows his card to Keith. An upside-down image of a person standing in front of seven goblets, each containing a seemingly random object: a snake, a dragon, something covered by a handkerchief, a laurel wreath, a floating face, a crystal tower, and a pile of jewels. “Seven of cups reversed. Represents illusion and temptation. That could be good or bad, depending.”

He shrugs and puts the card back. “Oh well. They’re just cards.”

“You said they were extremely powerful.”

“Ah... extremely powerful _at times._ They’re rather arbitrary that way. But when they’re accurate, they can foretell major events and such. Wars and battles, the rise and fall of kingdoms, rising heroes and villains.”

Keith snorts. “All right, whatever you say.”

The Magician grins in his face; Keith swats him away. “And I say I’m going to buy it for you.”

Keith’s eyes widen. “What? I don’t have any use of that.”

“You never know. That’s the magic of it.” He mimes little explosions with his hands, almost dropping the tarot wheel in the process. Despite himself, Keith chuckles.

The Magician places the tarot wheel on the counter, in front of a tall man with a bright orange mustache taking up half his face.

Mustache Man doesn’t seem surprised that the Magician himself is standing in front of him, just tells him in a very energetic voice, “That’ll cost two great fears!”

Keith glances at the Magician, confused. “Two... fears?”

He nods. “We have different ways to measure value here. Gold is not worth much on Altea.”

He thinks for a moment, eyeing Keith shrewdly. Then he snaps his fingers and says simply, “The truth.” He turns to Keith. “Your turn.”

“I thought you were buying this for me,” Keith says dumbly.

The Magician smirks. “I’m still going to make you pull your own weight. Think of it as a bonding exercise.”

“Bonding exercise, my ass,” Keith mutters, but he thinks about the question for a moment. What does he fear? Well... Pidge, when she’s angry, definitely, but he’s not sure that’s what Mustache Man means. Something tells him it won’t even count as valid payment.

Strange how such a seemingly simple question can be such a looming, dark presence in this little unknown part of your mind that you never dare venture into.

He’s only snapped out of his musings when the Magician gives him a little nudge; a friendly reminder. His face, usually so cavalier, now wears an expression of gentle concern. “Hurry up.”

“The past. The future,” Keith blurts out. He ducks his head and flushes. What a stupid answer.

The Magician doesn’t make a snarky remark, for which Keith is grateful. He just picks up the tarot wheel and nods to Mustache Man, who’s jotting down their responses.

He smiles up at them both. “Pleasure to be of service, Lance.”

Keith shoots a curious glance at the Magician when they’ve left the psychic shop behind them. “Are you two close? He called you by your name.”

The Magician shrugs. “I know everyone in this town, and they know me. Either way, you’re pretty much the only person that I’ve talked to for more than a few minutes that still refers to me as ‘the Magician.’ You’re quite stubborn that way.”

“You don’t seem like a Lance,” Keith replies, then mentally punches himself. Just because someone’s appearance or personality doesn’t match their name doesn’t mean it _can’t_ be their name.

He can’t help it, though. In his mind, this person standing before him, wearing a stupid floppy witch’s hat and a silly grin, holding a strange psychic-reading device, is not _Lance._ But... now, he isn’t the Magician either. At least, not the Magician Keith thought he knew before he came to Altea, the shadowy man who lived in splendor and excess wealth, cold and arcane. He’s definitely egotistical and rich, no denying that. But he’s also kind to his prodigies and the villagers, and mysterious not in a distant manner, but in a way that pulls you in, wanting to know more.

So maybe he’s not Lance, but he’s not the Magician anymore, either. He’s a man with no name, a person of light smiles and bad fashion sense and strange worlds and fleeting, pensive looks that flicker and disappear like ghosts.

Funny how a name can become such a controversy in his mind.

The Magician/Lance sighs. “Well then, if you’re so torn up about it, why don’t you just call me however you want.”

Keith makes a split, sudden decision then. Maybe he’s not worth a real name right now, so he will stay the Magician. If only just because it’s true that Keith is very stubborn, and won’t give him the satisfaction of using the intimacy of a birth name.

The Magician seems to realize that he won’t win this round. He sighs again and turns on his heel, walking down an alleyway lit with red lights.

“Come on, I’ll show you one of my favorite places on this entire island.”

Keith hesitates, but eventually decides that it isn’t worth sulking and walking all the way up the cliff back to the Castle all alone by himself. He has to run to catch up to the Magician, whose legs are much longer than Keith’s.

“Gosh, you’re like the size of a peanut,” the Magician comments, smiling smugly.

“Say that again,” Keith snaps, “and you’ll see who gets crushed like a peanut.”

He just laughs and slows his pace, to which Keith is silently grateful.

In a few minutes, they’ve come into sight of an enormous carousel, decorated with elaborate horses and other hoofed animals that Keith doesn’t think actually exist - but who knows on this island of wonders? They’re so realistically painted that at first he almost mistakes them for real living animals. The bars are painted with delicate gold-and-silver filigree, and the center is made to look like the Castle of Lions. Bushes with a strange type of swirled flower grow around the carousel.

“Here we are,” the Magician cries, spreading his arms. “I love this place. It’s always so peaceful.”

“I guess,” Keith says. He finds it has a more creepy and abandoned theme park air to it, but to each his own, he supposes.

The Magician sets the tarot wheel carefully on the ground and jumps up onto the nearest gilded horse, sitting side-saddle. He holds out his hand, a giddy, childish look on his face. Keith planned to ignore his silent offer, to just brush past him and sit on the decorated animal next to him, but the Magician takes his arm and somehow manages to pull him up onto the seat behind him. It’s surprisingly big enough to fit them both on it comfortably.

The Magician taps the horse’s side, and in a moment, the carousel is starting to spin. The horse creaks into motion, its head tossing and tail flicking like a real live animal’s.

Keith expected this ride to be short and sweet and normal, but of course, this is the Magician. He doesn’t do _normal._

He almost falls off the carousel when the horse turns its head to look at its charges with big, curious brown eyes. Real, life-like eyes, not cold plastic.

Keith yelps and grabs onto the Magician’s sleeve. When he looks around, he finds that all the creatures have turned from paint and plastic and wood to flesh and blood and fur. The gold-and-silver bars connecting the animals to the ceiling have disappeared, so they move freely. The Magician grins and grabs hold of the leather reins, enjoying Keith’s confusion.

“This girl’s name right here is Blue,” he explains, patting the silver horse they’re riding.

“How original,” Keith drawls, in an effort to sound nonchalant, despite his panicked breathing and obvious discomfort sitting here on an enormous _live_ horse clinging to the Magician’s arm much too tightly. He never liked horses.

The carousel speeds up, the horse galloping in place as if trying to catch up to something on the horizon only it can see. The Magician has a lazy, lopsided smile on his face, and he’s leaning over on the horse’s neck, looking ready to fall asleep.

More than a bit mesmerized, Keith reaches out and pushes the blue witch’s hat back up the Magician’s brow, giving Keith a clear view of his jeweled mask and his pointed, elf-like ears. One of his earrings twirls, catching the light from the carousel’s ceiling.

The Magician doesn’t react, save for a soft laugh that rises up from his throat. Keith’s heart swells with some unnamed emotion.

Then, all too soon, the carousel slows to a stop, and the animals return to simply being very realistically-designed carnival rides. Yet the Magician stays half-asleep on the silver horse, now snoring lightly.

Keith gratefully jumps off the horse’s back. The warm feeling is gone, replaced with exasperation. It’s getting cold out, and Keith would like nothing more than to return to his rooms and curl up on a window ledge with a blanket, watching the moon shine down on the choppy dark ocean waves below.

But _no,_ the Magician decided that now was the perfect time to take a nap.

He contemplates shoving the Magician off the horse, but fears the consequences because of it. He still is the ruler - or whatever he deigns to call himself - of this entire island.

“Hey,” he hisses, poking the Magician. “Wake up. It’s late, and I’ve indulged you long enough.”

He doesn’t stir.

Keith resorts to desperate measures - he reaches out for the Magician’s mask. He seemed quite attached to it, and something tells Keith that this will work.

Indeed, as soon as Keith’s fingers brush the pristine white surface, the Magician’s eyes snap open. He sits up fast as lightning, his hand flying to his mask. He glares at Keith with a ferocity too intense for something seemingly so trivial, but Keith flinches and steps back from the silver horse. 

“Don’t. Touch. The mask,” the Magician says through gritted teeth. 

Keith raises his hands innocently. “Fine. Okay. You don’t have to get touchy about it. You hiding something?”

The Magician steps off the carousel, picking up the tarot wheel, suddenly defensive. “What would you know? Why do you care?”

Keith grumbles under his breath about the Magician being uptight, but doesn’t protest any further. He follows the Magician from a few feet behind as he stalks through the streets, head raised high. He turns a few corners, passing lots of shops and people, but ignores them.

Finally he just grabs hold of Keith’s arm and takes a deep breath. In the time it takes to wrench himself out of the Magician’s grasp, they’re already standing on top of a tall building overlooking the entire island. With a gasp, Keith realizes that the Magician has transported them to the roof of the Castle of Lions.

Well, the Magician is right about one thing; the view from up here truly is breathtaking. The moon is bigger than ever, taking up most of Keith’s vision when he looks up at the sky. The ocean is so far below them that he can’t even make out the waves crashing against the cliff face. Something large with wings flies in front of the light of the moon, casting a shadow. It looks a lot like a dragon, with the tail of a lion.

“I thought it would be fitting to end this tour at my favorite place, period,” the Magician says.

He is standing right on the edge of the roof, his hat in his hands, his hair blowing in the wind. After a moment of hesitation, Keith moves to stand next to him.

“I’m sorry,” the Magician murmurs, staring intently at his village below. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“Sorry I overstepped my boundaries,” says Keith. “I didn’t know you were so... sensitive about that.”

The Magician smiles apologetically at him. “Are we done with that? I don’t like being angry at people. Just messing with their minds a bit, nothing more. That’s fun.”

“Are you talking about me?”

“Of course.”

Keith sighs. “Sure. I find it exhausting, too. Doesn’t mean I can’t hold a grudge, though.”

The Magician inclines his head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He looks back up at the sky, watching the same shadowy figure that’s still circling above them. “Ah, an Empryae. I’ve only ever seen one a handful of times. Tonight’s a night of rarities, I suppose.”

He whistles a series of high-pitched notes, then a few lower ones. The Empryae circles lower, and in a matter of moments, it’s flying close enough for Keith to make out its strange features. For one thing, it has three heads. One looks a bit like a zebra, one a wolf, and one looks like it’s wearing a mask. It has two sets of enormous black wings, their undersides speckled with colors that resemble stars. Its tail is as long as the roof is wide, its white feathered tip flicking and curling. Its body is so thin Keith wonders if it’s starving, and to top it all off, a halo of pure light rings its necks like a collar.

The Magician steps up to the creature, holding out his hand. The Empryae lets each of its heads nip affectionately at his hand in turn. Keith just stares, mouth agape. He’s never seen anything so bizarre yet so magnificent.

The Magician extends his hand to Keith, eyes mischievous. “Come on. It won’t bite.”

“You’re the one who said the animals here are cute but still wild,” says Keith warily.

“Nah, the Empryae are one of the most peaceful animals in the world.”

Still, animals never liked him before, he doesn’t think they’ll start now. Reluctantly Keith steps forward, holding out his hand fully prepared to get his fingers bitten off.

Instead, he feels something nudging his hand, like a large wet nose. He peeks one eye open to see the Empryae’s zebra head nibbling his fingers curiously. The Magician watches on with smug pride. Told you so.

The wolf head arches its slender neck and howls, a low, mournful sound like a pauper’s flute. The moon casts a blue sheen on its silver fur.

Then just as suddenly as it landed, the Empryae steps back, spreading its large wings and leaping off the cliff in one graceful motion. It falls for a moment before its wings catch the wind and it soars into the sky, once again becoming a speck in the distance, blurring with the night’s stars.

“That was... um... wow,” Keith finally says.

The Magician looks just as spellbound as Keith does, but at least he manages a coherent sentence. “This island never ceases to amaze me. I always think I’ve gotten used to it, but then a new wonder unveils itself.”

Keith gazes out at the night sky and the town and ocean below it. He can’t help but silently agree.

Eventually, the Magician turns on his heel; he smashes the witch’s hat back on his head, casting his face in shadows. He heads for a railing and a staircase in the middle of the rooftop, then turns back to Keith, who’s still standing by the edge. 

“Come on, it’s getting late. Didn't you want to get back?” Without waiting for a response, he starts descending the stairs back down into his Castle of Lions. 

Keith runs to catch up. 

They pass a few prodigies and other guests here for the Game of Marvels on their way. But in a matter of moments, they’ve reached his rooms, even though Keith is sure that it’s much farther away than that.

The Magician turns around to stare at him. His eyes look distant, his grin faded. “I leave you here, then,” he says. 

He looks ready to go before he realizes he still holds the tarot wheel in his hands. He holds it out to Keith, and Keith takes it, spinning the outer circle of cards absentmindedly. 

Finally, he musters the courage to say, “When is the next Trial?”

The Magician shakes his head. “You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”

“Then...” Keith struggles to find something to say; despite spending almost an entire night with him - and spending lots of the time complaining - he can’t seem to muster the will to let the Magician leave. Not yet. “When will I see you again?”

He curses himself for sounding so clingy. This isn’t like him.

The Magician pretends to consider. He shrugs. “Who can tell?”

He flickers for a second, then disappears entirely. Keith grumbles under his breath and slams the door behind him, then leans on it. Curse that damn Magician with his cryptic words and mischievous smiles and pretty worlds. He twirls the tarot cards, occasionally plucking one from the wheel and reading them, then tossing them aside; he doesn’t know what they mean.

_The Fool._

_The Moon._

_The Wheel of Fortune._

_The Magician._

As always, back to the Magician.


	4. Striga Incantrix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *wheelies in over 4 months late with Starbucks and an 11.6k-word monster of a chapter* I hope y'all aren't rabid lmao (kidding, of course)
> 
> I'm just really tired of this chapter and I slaved over it for way too long. Umm, what else to say... I wrote the majority of this at 12 am, so sorry if this is just really weird, haha.
> 
> On second thought, I _really_ should have just made this into 3 separate chapters.

Allura sits on a blue chaise lounge with her cards spread out in front of her in Lance’s antechamber. She’s dressed in a simple white lace dress, her hair loose around her shoulders. She’s still wearing her white mask, which gives her the air of a wandering ghost. She stares over her cards so intently that a crease in her brow has formed. 

She spins her tarot wheel and plucks a card from the whirl of colors. With a tap of her finger, the card comes to life in the air above them, filling the room to the brim with color and magic.

It’s a set of cards Allura created herself, and this particular one depicts a girl dancing over shards of glass that catch in the light and abstract the room into prisms. Her feet and dress are bloodied, but that doesn’t seem to bother the girl. She just keeps on dancing; leaping and twirling, her dress twisting around her ankles entrancingly.

Lance leans forward in his seat, eyes wide. It never ceases to amaze him when Allura uses her magic, no matter how big or small the feat.

She pulls out another card, this one depicting a sun surrounded by flowers that look suspiciously like the striga incantrix flowers growing around the carousel in the town. In the air, the flowers spin around the sun, gaining speed until they’re just a blur.

Allura studies the cards, looking at them from every angle until finally resting them on the table in front of her. “You decide, Lance.”

He snaps out of his reverie, leaning back in his chair nonchalantly. He looks over the cards for a minute, then grins broadly. 

“I think I have just the idea,” he says, snatching up the two cards and throwing them into the air with a burst of magic.

 

The tarot wheel turns out to be extra-mysterious since Keith has no idea what the hell any of the cards mean. He eventually just tosses all the cards around his rooms in frustration. He can’t make sense of any of the numbers, strange images, or why the hell they’d be so powerful. But it seems that the joke’s on him because he ends up slipping on many of the cards scattered around his rooms on multiple occasions. This leaves him no choice but to grudgingly scour the place picking up all the cards and putting them back on the tarot wheel. They automatically spin back into their slow orbit around the moon and bejeweled orb in the middle.

The pearl taunts Keith with its brilliant glow and smooth surface even though he’s stuffed it beneath the covers of his grand bed and refuses to even look at it. Because of course, the best way to deal with something is to ignore it.

“Maybe it’s because he’s spent too much time around himself,” Keith muses to the tarot wheel. “That’s why he’s so goddamn useless and confusing. And why he has such a bad fashion sense. I mean, those _stupid hats._ ”

He doesn’t know how he ended up ranting to an inanimate object, but it’s better than the alternative, which is leaving the privacy of his rooms to _interact_ with anyone he finds out there. He can’t imagine suffering through a dull conversation full of idle, painfully false polite chit-chat with one of the entitled rich people of his home island and other islands he hasn’t even heard of.

“Sure, the Empryae was great,” Keith continues, absentmindedly twirling a card between his fingers, “and his village is, too. I can tell he loves it just as much as I do, probably even more. He acts like a little kid in those streets.

“And he’s just so... so...” He struggles to find a word that fits his feelings toward the Magician. “I dunno, weird. Different. Why am I talking to a tarot wheel?”

The tarot wheel doesn’t respond, of course. Keith sighs, low and drawn out. “I need to talk to more people.”

Well, maybe if he wanders the castle or something, he’ll find some answers for the Second Trial.

Reluctantly, he sets the tarot wheel on a shelf. He grabs the pearl and slips it in his pocket, smoothes out the wrinkles in his shirt, and opens the door leading out to the long hallway perfumed with flowers. 

Standing practically right outside his door when he opens it is an aristocrat with clothing as fine as the Magician’s and an equally unnerving beauty about him. A forelock of white hair falls over his face, presumably on purpose. His face is all angles and cold features, his eyes chips of sharp sapphire.

“Oh, hello. I didn’t know these were your chambers,” he says nonchalantly. Something tells Keith that this man knew exactly where he was staying. An expression of false recognition dawns over his face, though Keith can’t help but think for a second that it’s real. “You’re the Magician’s personal guest, aren’t you?”

Ah, so that’s why he’s here. Keith crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “Yes, actually. What’s it to you? Having trouble getting him to notice you?”

The man keeps his face impassive, surging a spark of indignation from Keith. He changes tactics. “Who’re you?”

“Lotor, son of the esteemed Lord Zarkon of the Isles of Daibazaal. You may have heard of him.”

Of course he’s heard of Lord Zarkon. Nicknamed “Emperor Zarkon” for how many islands he’s in control of, he owns so much land it might as well be his empire. Including Keith’s home island. And standing before him is the man’s _son_? He starts weighing the pros and cons of slamming the door in the guy’s face.

“Keith,” he simply says in return.

“No title of your own?” Lotor said, looking over Keith’s rumpled, rather mismatched clothing, unkempt hair that he hasn’t bothered brushing in a few days, and the dark bags under his eyes with an appraising eye. “What makes you so special that you should receive a personal invitation from the Magician himself to his Game?”

“I don’t know,” Keith says tiredly. “I just got the letter in the mail and decided _What the hell, I might as well accept his invitation._ So here I am.”

Lotor’s eyes flicker with emotion, and though Keith can’t place a name to it, it still heartens him to know that at least this man has feelings.

“We can help each other,” Lotor proposes; Keith stifles a groan. He doesn’t want anything from this entitled aristocrat, nor does he have any interest in helping him.

“Right,” Keith says, drawing out the word.

Lotor reaches into the pocket of his perfectly-pressed tailcoat and pulls out a glistening pearl. “I take it you have something similar to this in your possession.”

Keith’s hand unwittingly hovers over where he’s tucked it into his breast pocket. This move doesn’t escape Lotor’s attention.

“And have you figured out the next clue?” he asks.

Keith’s lack of response is answer enough. He despises how easily this fake prince can read his every move and thought.

“Exactly what I thought,” Lotor continues. “Well, like I said, I was thinking you could help me in certain aspects, and vice versa.

“For instance, you have access to things that I even do not - places in the town and the Castle restricted to most. His prodigies seem to be more inclined towards you, and you can even enter his morasses - those alternate realms that he’s so fond of - with less trouble.”

“I can?” Keith asks. At Lotor’s scowl, he quickly tries to tamp down the bafflement in his voice. “I mean, yeah. It’s pretty nice. But what can you provide me?”

Lotor moves to one of the gaslight lamps hung up on the walls and angles it just so over his pearl - it shines twice as bright. “For one thing, I’ve played before. I anticipate the tricks, I know the secrets.”

He pointed at the bottom of the pearl, where a line of markings seems to be etched into it.

“All right… so what is that?” Keith asks.

“They’re Altean runes. I don’t suppose you can translate them?” Lotor shoots a disdainful glance at Keith. 

“Can you?” he retorts.

“In fact, I can,” Lotor says in a tone so smug that Keith wonders if he’s trying to imitate the Magician. “I was taught many languages as a child, including ancient runes.”

“So what do they say?”

He squints at the pale writing. “‘Most truths lie underneath many facets of more beautiful exteriors.’ Or it could mean ‘Truthful cows tell beautiful tales,’ but I doubt that’s correct.”

“Oh, come on!” Keith protests. “It doesn’t even specify how long we have to complete this Trial.”

“Well, maybe it’s leading us to a longer, more detailed note,” Lotor says. “Obviously it cannot be just this.”

“He couldn’t have possibly thought all of his players would be able to decipher Altean runes, could he?” If that were the case, Keith hopes the Magician braced himself for many to fail this Trial.

“His prodigies must be able to.”

Keith peers at his own pearl, looking from his to Lotor’s. Wait… the markings etched on his pearl are a bit different, aren’t they?

The lord notices this, and he snatches the pearl out of Keith’s grasp. He almost trips over Lotor’s feet in an attempt to grab it back.

“‘You usually have to get your hands bloody, though’,” Lotor reads. He angles it under the gaslight differently. 

“This time it says, ‘Flowers always have an allure to them that hints of more than meets the eye.’ And what might that mean?”

Keith’s mind races and his thoughts rewind to an old carousel with blossoms arranged in beautiful swirling patterns. And with that, he knows for certain that’s where the clue is leading them. The pale flowers burn brightly even in his memory.

Lotor has already turned back to his own pear. He mutters under his breath, “‘You have from the fourth of August through the eighth of August.’ Wonderful, we’ve already lost a day.”

"Well then, let’s get on with it,” Keith says, snatching back his own pearl. At the lord’s inquiring look, he just turns on his heel and prays that he remembers how to get out of this labyrinthine palace. Apparently even the Magician’s whims are just part of his bigger plan. Sneaky bastard.

He wanders down the halls, appearing to take his time when in reality he’s scanning every door and jeweled sculpture on display for some kind of indication of where they may be. He has to resist a sigh of relief when he finally recognizes a gilded imperial stairway that leads down to an enormous foyer. At the end of the room stands a tall doorway curtained in little glowing lights that flit around and wink like fireflies. He could have sworn the doorway was made of bronze last night, but he’s certain it’s the way out of the castle.

Lotor steals glances at Keith as they make their way down the staircase, his gaze both curious and calculating. “I hope you have a plan because I have no idea where you are leading me.”

Keith holds back a derisive laugh. He’s never made plans for anything before, he’s not going to start now.

Instead, he just says, “Um… of course.” 

Lotor probably sees right through his lie, but he decides to let it slide for now. Instead, he waves his hand through the lights hovering around the door. He tries to pull one away from the rest, but the small orb doubles in size in the space of a second and bites the tip of Lotor’s fingertip. Keith stifles a laugh as the lord jumps away from the doorway and furiously shakes his hand, trying to get the little vermin off. Still, Keith hesitates for a moment before parting the curtain of lights and opening the door.

Outside, they find a couple standing on the edge, looking over the town. One of them looks a bit bored, but his blonde companion wanders across the terrace, eyes glued to the ground as if searching for something. She wears a pale blue skirt that swishes around her legs as she walks. When they notice Lotor and Keith, they shuffle off to the side.

Lotor pays them no mind, just scoffs and mutters, “Came here only to watch the _real_ players.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Keith asks. “Just… pay to get in and then never play? That’ kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

Lotor shoots him a look that very clearly says _If you know so little about the Game of Marvels, then why were you invited?_ “Of course. The Magician doesn’t care how you spend your time here, so long as he gets the publicity and the few people who will actually participate.”

Keith curses the Magician for a solid minute. “So you’re telling me I could have just kicked back and enjoyed the nice food for the entire three months instead of dragging myself into this shitshow?”

“Well, no. You are his personal guest. Usually, you’re expected to partake in the Trials.”

“Still,” Keith grumbles. “Don’t people come here for a reason? The mystery and suspense, and all that bull?”

“People have gone insane, even died, in these Trials before.” Lotor says this as easily as if he were commenting on the pretty gown the blonde girl is wearing. “They would rather not risk it.”

That’s when Keith realizes how little he really knows about the true nature of the Game of Marvels. Pidge had only regaled him with the miraculous feats the Magician performed. About the blinding lights and glimmering gems. Not the darker aspects lurking below the glamour.

He is definitely going to get Pidge back on this when he gets back. More or less sane, hopefully.

He pushes that thought aside and turns to the long, thin bridge leading to the town, trying to look as nonchalant as Lotor.

The sun is already setting, even though it feels as if it’s only been a few hours. Then Keith remembers what the Magician said about the island: that the nights last longer than the days. He’d never admit it, but Keith kind of likes that dynamic.

The town is much busier than the night before, and he has to constantly dodge out of the way of the locals, whose strange clothing and appearances seem to cancel each other out so that Keith almost gets used to them. Still, he can’t help but stare at the dresses that change colors and styles under different lighting, the people covered head to toe in intricate inked designs, the perfect beauty of pretty much everyone. As the sun keeps sinking, the lanterns flicker on, bathing the streets in red light.

Lotor follows a few steps behind. He stares at the town not with wonder, but with an expression that’s more like respect. Reverence, as if it’s a sacred place.

Keith uses the unique-looking shops to point himself in the direction of the carousel. He sees the psychic shop where he bought that tarot wheel, and at that, he knows that they just have to cross this bridge... and turn down this alleyway... to find the carousel standing there in all its bright, unnerving glory.

A figure hovers over the bushes of flowers, tending to them. At the person’s touch, the flowers seem to perk up. In the brilliant colors of the sunset, they reflect the light and sparkle like spun sugar.

The person bent over the flowers looks up, and in that action, their face catches the light. Where in the darkness they looked like an average human, now that facade falls away to reveal a being whose body has the substance of a bonfire. Two sets of red eyes glow under a pale blue light radiating from their skin.

Keith tries not to react, thinking that would be rude. Instead, he pulls out his pearl and focuses on the flowers. What are they supposed to do? He reaches out to pick one.

The being - spirit? wraith? - seems to figure out what he’s thinking. It hisses. Keith jumps away, throwing his hands out defensively. “Okay, okay,” he mutters.

The spirit just flares a brighter shade of blue and turns around, sulky. Back in the shadows, their form shifts into a more humanoid appearance again.

Keith jumps onto the carousel and wanders among the decorated animals. After a while, he realizes that he’s not exactly searching for clues that he’s reminiscing about the night before. A misty veil shrouds the memory, like a childhood fairy tale half-remembered. He curses himself and leans away from the animals as if that will snap him out of the sappy thoughts.

Meanwhile, Lotor is halfway drowning in the thickest patch of flowers. After a moment he reemerges, his hair and clothes barely rumpled. He calls Keith over.

Lotor pushes aside a gleaming flower the size of his head. Half-hidden underneath is a familiar glowing symbol - a blue lion with a crown carved from ice hovering over its head. “Is this a good enough clue for you?”

Without waiting for Keith to answer, he drops his pearl into the glowing blue symbol.

For a moment, nothing happens. Lotor sighs and reaches down to retrieve his pearl, but then brilliant white light bursts from the bushes, tearing away at everything around them.

The pearl’s glow splits in half and from the fissure rises many fractures of light and sound - a cacophony of bird cries; echoing, splintered screams; the beating of enormous wings; an orchestra that doesn’t follow any sense of rhythm or melody. Twisting, feral sounds and sights that blind and disorient, dazzle and destroy.

In the chaos, the carousel starts spinning faster than should be possible. Some of the flowers get shredded as they fly into the air. Keith loses his balance and falls onto one of the strange carousel animals, wondering if it’s worth the humiliation of throwing up right here and now. 

He’s spinning, spinning, _drowning_...

At some point, the tiny suns bursting behind his eyelids start to melt back into the darkness, and Keith finds that he can open his eyes without being assaulted by flaring lights.

He blinks quickly. The landscape unfurls before him, the lights and echoes smoothing out their creases and converging into spires of glass, trees carved from gems, a small world of fragile opulence.

Keith gasps, against his own will. Lotor, despite standing stoically beside him, shivers.

Before them, painted and decorated in colors as rich and shining as jewels and as fractured as prisms, was indeed a town made entirely of glass. Some shops or landmarks looked suspiciously like the ones in the Magician’s village, but others are so abstract and fancy that Keith isn’t even sure they can count as buildings. More like sculptures than anything.

Lotor surveys the town with eager eyes. Looking for clues, piecing together information, searching beneath the distracting brilliance of the town.

Keith, on the other hand, can’t help but be struck dumb by the beauty of this particular morass. The Magician couldn’t have picked a better place to host one of his Trials, especially if his goal is to divert Keith’s attention entirely from the Trial and instead on the wonder of his alternate worlds. 

Lotor runs his hand across a tree’s hard, shiny bark. His hands come away flaked with the same silver coloring. The tree’s branches burst with shining blue leaves that are as hard as steel when Keith tries to break one off. Sapphire berries decorate the tree, glinting in the pale light. 

“Do you think they’re edible?” Lotor muses, inclining his head.

Keith glances at him from the corner of his eye. “I dunno, why don’t you try one and see if you don’t choke on it?”

Lotor frowns and turns away.

So much for their “partnership.”

Keith starts wandering the town, telling himself to take his time in exploring the vacant shops and tall sculptures dotting the town. No point in going in blind. Who knows, he might accidentally come across a lead. 

He’s been walking for a few minutes now, with no sign of life in the town - not even a humid breeze or a rustle of the steel leaves in the orderly trees. The lack of sound and life makes everything seem eerily on edge, like a house of cards about to collapse. 

But as he continues down the deserted main road, he finally hears something: through the thick tangibility of silence, comes a slow and rhythmic noise, like the ticking of a clock...

...Because it is. Standing in the middle of the town center is a tall clock tower, its steady ticking the only noise in the town, the chipped glass hands the only movement. 

The closer Keith gets to the clock tower, the more detail he can make out of it. The tower isn’t as strong as it first appears; instead, the silver brick is crumbling and the clock’s hands move at uneven intervals, sometimes shuttering to a stop and shakily starting up again. But it seems the closest to life in this town that seems to be frozen in time.

When Keith looks around the town center, he can’t find Lotor anywhere. Keith circles the clock tower, searching for an entrance. There’s a small, filthy door hidden away behind a bush of delicate crystal flowers - the same kind of flowers with the swirled pattern of petals that were gathered around the carousel.

Keith shoves the flowers aside and pushes the door open. It creaks and groans. A chip of broken glass slices through his finger. Blood wells and drips onto the flowers, smearing their pristine surfaces.

“Ah, you found something. Good.”

Keith jumps at the sound of another voice. He’d almost forgotten about Lotor, almost forgotten the sound of human voices. It feels like they’ve been here for years, though it can’t have been more than an hour.

Lotor eyes the blood on Keith’s hand for a moment then seems to decide it’s not his concern. He peers over Keith’s shoulder at the glass door and the winding staircase it leads to.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Lotor asks. “It’s a lead, isn’t it? At least better than what I have found.”

Keith wipes his bloodied hand on his shirt and marches up the steep steps. He doesn’t wait for Lotor to follow, and doesn’t particularly care if he does. He hears footsteps behind him, soft and stealthy as a cat’s, but he doesn’t turn around.

There aren’t any windows in the stairwell, nor any lights. But the stairwell is as brightly lit as the ballroom in the Castle of Lions with its dozens of chandeliers and candles. It seems to take hours to climb the staircase, until Keith’s calves burn with each movement and he struggles to not slip on the smooth silver steps. 

Then, finally, they reach another glass door, this one sturdier and cleaner. Keith reaches out for the knob before turning around to look at Lotor, who - maddeningly - doesn’t look out of breath or disheveled in the slightest.

Lotor raises an eyebrow. “Oh, so now you care about my opinion?”

“Next time I’ll just barrel right in without thinking, then. If that’s what you’d prefer.”

Either way, it turns out that it doesn’t matter. The door is locked. Keith tries to shove it down, but that only serves to bruise his shoulder and side. 

Keith kicks the door, ignoring the sharp pain in his foot that it causes. “What now? It’s a dead end.”

Lotor sighs a _You clearly didn’t think this through_ kind of sighs. “You haven’t tried knocking.”

“What’s that going to accomplish?”

Lotor steps forward and raps his knuckles on the door, then backs away, his hands behind his back.

They wait for a couple minutes. Just as Keith’s about to try shoving down the door again, it creaks open. A woman with her face obscured by a hood peers through the crack in the door.

“Who are you?” she rasps, glancing over her shoulder at something in her room. “I haven’t known anyone yet.”

This woman’s words seem like they’re being transported through many years and chopped up, and as if she’s trying desperately to string them back together. 

“What are you -”

Lotor interjects, pushing Keith aside. “We don’t know what you are talking about. We haven’t seen anyone else in this morass since we got here. We were wondering if you could help us.”

Keith shoots a glance at Lotor, who stands stock-still, staring at the woman with an unwavering gaze. Keith tries to imitate his stance and expression.

The woman shuffles away, moving to close the door in their faces, but Lotor sticks his foot in the gap between the door and the wall. “Please. We just want to speak with you. If you would only give us a few minutes of your time...”

“Oh, but what is a minute?” she mutters, shaking her head vigorously. “A minute is forever, a minute used to last eons, a minute lasts never. Can you give me never?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Lotor says, looking genuinely apologetic.

“Then why did I help you?” she asks.

“That’s the point,” Keith snaps. “You haven’t helped us yet. We’d appreciate it if you did.”

Lotor doesn’t look at all angry or impatient; instead, his face is calm and pensive, his brows drawn together. “What is your name?”

She tilts her head to the side, contemplating. “Oh, it has been eons since I speak it. Haggar, I think. Or... is it something other? Whichever.” She laughs, a throaty and bristled sound.

Yes, this person went mad long ago. Lotor plows on regardless. “What do you want here?”

The woman takes a moment to answer; Keith wonders if she even heard the question. Then she looks up and says, “I never know. But I did want to know what you desired of my time.”

“We just want to know more about this place,” Keith says as he steps into her small, circular room.

The walls are tinted black, blocking out all light except for the floor-to-ceiling window opposite Keith. The room is cluttered and dusty. Of course, almost everything is made of crystal, glass, or some kind of precious gem. Except all the tables and shelves are chipped and broken. If Keith didn’t know any better, he’d think the place was abandoned years ago.

The woman circles Keith slowly, and though her face is still obscured by the cloak, he gets the feeling that she’s studying every aspect of him, even things he can’t see of himself.

Then she tosses back her cloak’s hood in a flash of movement so swift and sudden that Keith tenses. He catches sight of lank white hair and pupiless yellow eyes set in a gaunt face before she whips around to stare at the cracked window. She raises a hand to point shakily at something outside. But all Keith sees is the same empty streets and buildings and the glimmer and glint of the sun on the world of glass.

“There were many aspects of this land. Most were destroyed. The test of time proves to be too much. This is true for most things.”

“What do you mean by that? Many aspects... many...” Lotor’s eyes suddenly brighten; he seems to have an idea. “Many facets!”

He bolts down the stairs, abandoning all pretense of composure. Keith stumbles after him, but not before shooting a glare at the mysterious woman, daring her to chance any tricks or games.

It doesn’t seem to take as long to reach the bottom of the spiral staircase as it did to get to the top. Keith trips on the last step and tumbles into Lotor’s back. The noble doesn’t seem to notice, instead stepping forward and yanking the dirt-stained door open. Grime smudges his fingers.

Outside, the town looks the same - the sun glinting off the glass panes of the roofs blinds them, crystal leaves on the trees chime in the slow wind - but when their eyes adjust to the glaring sunlight, there’s a huge difference. The town bustles with life - shopkeepers haggling prices and advertising their goods, children chasing each other down the streets, stray cats slinking along the shadows of the alleyways. The formerly chipped and dirtied streets and buildings now glow fresh as new snow, and just as pristine. No one even glances in their direction, though.

“What the hell is going on?” Keith mutters, looking over Lotor’s shoulder at the bustling town. Lotor simply narrows his eyes and slams the door shut before Keith can run out past him onto the streets. 

When he yanks the door open again, the shops are vacant and the crystal walls are chipping away. Lotor isn’t surprised, or at least he hides it well. 

The next time he opens the door the town seems to have been sped up to ten years in the future. The buildings are completely run-down now, the streets uneven and broken, the beautiful trees and flowers lying in crumbles on the ground. 

Lotor steps outside. Keith follows him. He steps hesitantly onto the cracked road, nudging aside a pile of broken glass with his foot. 

Lotor turns in a circle slowly, taking in the dilapidated clock tower (it looks about ready to cave in). Keith follows his gaze, until his eyes snag on something completely out of place.

It’s that same patch of swirly flowers gathered around the base of the clock tower. They shine just as bright in the sunlight as before, their petals still perfectly fashioned. They glow all manners of colors if the light hits them just so.

There’s something alluring about the flowers, and it’s not just the contrast of their purity compared to the ruin all around them. Keith breaks one from its stem, careful not to cut his hand on the jagged edges of the jewels. There’s nothing else really different about the flower, but he pockets it just in case. Perhaps he’ll crush it into smaller pieces and mail it to Pidge so she can buy that new android-thing she’s been drooling over in the machine shops.

Lotor abruptly turns around and walks back into the clock tower. Keith grabs hold of the door just before it closes on him. He slips inside and brushes past Lotor without a word.

They race back up the stairs to find the woman still staring out the window, her hood down around her shoulders. She’s rocking gently back and forth, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. Lotor walks up to her with his head held high, that familiar stoicism back. 

“Are you trapped here?” he asks.

She freezes for a moment, then says tentatively, as if it never occurred to her: “I would think so.”

Meanwhile, Keith walks up to the window and looks down at the town below. It’s a little more barren since the last time he saw it, but Haggar doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. She hardly seems to notice the shards of glass littering the roads or the near-tangible silence covering the morass like a heavy wool blanket.

“Are we meant to help you in some way?” Lotor muses, more to himself than to Haggar.

She cocks her head. “I do not think I would want it, if you were.”

Keith takes out the crystal flower and holds it up to the light. There’s a small crack in the center, as if it was cut in half and glued back together again to hide the damage.

As he’s about to slip the flower back into his pocket, Haggar gasps. “What is that?”

She shuffles towards him, reaching out one claw-like hand. Keith tries to back away but bumps into the window. “Where have you found that? I want it.”

Haggar moves faster than Keith’s reflexes can push her away. For a woman appearing so frail, she moves with surprising speed when she wants to. She lunges for the flower, and as her fingers grace the smooth crystal, time seems to slow down. Even Keith’s thoughts stutter and sink.

From the large window, the village picks up its shifting scenes again. The perfectly-crafted buildings deteriorate to shattered shells in a matter of moments as if in a time-lapse video. The people flicker and disappear. And then it starts all over again. The trees reassemble themselves, the roads smooth out. Keith’s senses heighten and blur around the edges.

As soon as Haggar’s hands are encasing the flower entirely, time seems to splinter. Everything happens at once - the window shatters; Haggar shoves Keith to the ground; the crystal flower bursts into thousands of colors, its light fragmenting across the room.

The longer she holds onto the crystal, the younger she looks. Maybe it’s just the light, but it seems almost as if her hair is regaining its texture and color (a deep purple-gray). Her eyes shift from pupiless yellow to warm amber.

Lotor doesn’t seem to notice the changes in her appearance, or maybe he just doesn’t care. He follows Haggar’s example and tries to snatch the flower from her grasp. Keith just wonders why it’s so damn important and why he had to pick it in the first place. Stupid impulses.

When Lotor touches the flower, the prism of lights curls up back into the center of the crystal flower. Keith’s vision stops spinning.

“What the hell is that?” he hisses.

Lotor simply stares dumbly at it, for once looking at a loss for any quicksilver words. He glances out the window. This time the glass town has frozen in a state of peacefulness. The market stands and buildings gleam under the sun. The goods on display dance with fire bottled inside.

Haggar takes this moment to grab for the flower again, but Keith snaps back into action a split second later. They both lunge for the crystal grasped in Lotor’s hands. At the same moment, Lotor leaps away from them. He crashes into the wall by the window.

The crystal flower tumbles from his hands.

Haggar reaches it first, but a second too late. It falls at Lotor’s feet and shatters, sending a few beams of tinted light crisscrossing over the floor.

Haggar screams so loudly that Keith flinches and falls over a chair. His hand lands on a shard of crystal. He curses and tears it out without ceremony. 

“What have you done?!” screeches Haggar. She tries desperately to pick up the remnants of the flower, but it’s a hopeless endeavor. She drops them as the shards slice up her hands and beads of blood well up. But as they fall to the floor, they crystallize into rubies. 

“There’s... um...” Keith can’t tear his eyes away from the rubies glittering among the shards of the flower’s petals. “There are more outside?”

He can’t read the expression in Haggar’s bright yellow eyes. They glint with something wild and savage.

She upends a chair in her hurry to get out of the clock tower, but as soon as she reaches the threshold of the door, she stops so abruptly that it appears as if she’s being held back by invisible strings. For all they know, she is. Either way, she stares at the doorway, frozen.

Lotor finally regains his senses. He stands, dusting off the chips of crystal and ruby on his tailcoat, and brushes past Haggar as if she isn’t even there. 

“And where do you think you’re going?” Keith calls, racing after him. He seems to be doing that a lot lately. 

He pushes Haggar aside, muttering a half-hearted apology. She still doesn’t react. 

“If my theory is correct, we very well might get out of here with our sanity intact,” says Lotor. His voice echoes off the walls in the narrow stairwell.

“Oh, it’s too late for that,” Keith scoffs.

The sun is watery but the sky is bright enough to make Keith disoriented as soon as he steps out of the stairwell. The flowers with the swirl-patterned petals sit glimmering in the light, looking deceptively serene.

Lotor breaks the stems from their emerald bushes one by one. As he does so, the morass seems to waver, like a mirage in a desert.

In the distance, Keith hears the sound of a building crashing to the ground. A thin cloud of dust billows upward.

When he looks back at Lotor, he finds him crushing a gold-tinted flower under his heel. His grin is unsettling, to say the least - lips spread too wide and too thin to reveal sharp white canines.

Keith snatches a few of the flowers out of his hands. “What are you doing?”

“This is how we win,” Lotor argues. “Don’t you see? These flowers are everywhere; I saw them popping up everywhere when I was first exploring the town. They keep this world in a perpetual state of confusion, stuck on a broken record. Destroy the flowers, destroy the morass, overcome this Trial.”

“Along with that innocent woman?” Keith snaps. “There has to be another way.”

Lotor just frowns. He tosses another flower at the clock tower’s wall. As it shatters, the street rumbles, bringing down a few shop stands. Glittering silks, statues carved from pure gems, and various glass baubles all melt as they hit the ground, leaving only small puddles of vibrant colors against the cracked pavement.

Keith looks up at the clock tower, but the sun glinting off the glass obscures his view. He wonders if Haggar is still standing on the threshold, and why she can’t seem to leave the tower.

Which leads him to question how much of this place is real or not. Did the Magician really place a woman in this morass and alter her memories to make her think that she’s been trapped here for however long, that she’s _meant_ to stay here? Or is it all an illusion?

If so, it’s the most convincing illusion he’s ever seen. Keith can even smell the hint of tropical fruit in the air, laced with the acrid tang of smoke.

Keith clenches his fists. This can’t be right. 

He turns on his heel and races back up the clock tower. He finds Haggar crouched in the center of the room, gasping and panting. Blood dribbles from dozens of cuts across her body and her clothes look even more rumpled and ruined than before.

Keith pushes aside the guilt and pity that’s welling up in his chest. What’s more important right now is learning how this morass works and how to get everyone out safely.

So he grabs Haggar by the arm and pulls her upright to look him in the eyes. “Tell me the truth now. What do you remember about this place? Anything.”

She blinks up at him, her face a blank slate. 

Keith shakes her. “Come on! We can help you, but only if you tell us whatever you know.”

Haggar finally speaks. She closes her eyes and goes limp in Keith’s grasp. “Pain, all I am made of.”

“That doesn’t help!” Keith bites out. A small voice in the back of his head suggests that this might not be the best way to handle things, but it’s soon eclipsed by other warring emotions.

“Wait,” she rasps. A look of sheer concentration falls over her features. “I hear something. A tunnel... this tower, built over a tunnel.”

“Okay. That’s a start. Can it help us get out?”

“The clock tower...” She shivers. “I did not like it. But I’ll still have to stay here. For never.” 

Keith starts dragging her toward the door. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

She doesn’t put up much of a fight, but as soon as they reach the doorway, she digs her heels in and suddenly becomes as strong as a brick wall.

Keith groans and spins around to glare at her. “I’m trying to help you.”

Haggar covers her face with her hands, muttering a string of incoherent words. Every so often, she winces as new wounds appear on her body. Thin trickles of blood sink into the deep purple of her robes.

Keith frantically looks around the room. There’s still only the large window (now broken), and the useless pieces of furniture littering the room.

He groans. He’s going to have to resort to last-ditch efforts.

He sneaks up behind Haggar and scoops her up, throwing her over his shoulder without ceremony. She barely weighs anything, but her wild thrashing and clawing almost makes Keith lose his footing on multiple occasions. 

So when he manages to get Haggar past the threshold without getting his arm pulled out of its socket, he considers it a victory. “Oh, thank the Magician,” he mutters under his breath, voice dripping with irony. 

Haggar stops fighting so suddenly that Keith has a split moment of panic in which he thinks that maybe she passed out.

Instead, she murmurs, “The Magician?”

Keith doesn’t know how to respond, just hopes that she doesn’t start up the kicking again. “Uh... yeah. Dramatic, mysterious guy with the mask? You know him?”

“He shall meet his demise soon,” she says, voice cold. “I foresee it, but I am not worried. He deserves every terrible thing that came upon him.”

That seems a little extreme, Keith thinks, but he asks, “Did he trap you here?”

Haggar tries to wriggle free from his grasp again, to no avail. “I shall hope for his sake that he does not.”

“Okay, maybe calm down there on dishing out the revenge.” But doesn’t she have a right to be angry? After all, who knows how long he’s been held captive here?

They eventually reach the bottom, where Keith dumps Haggar at the base of the steps. She crumples to the floor and doesn’t move.

Keith finds Lotor sitting amidst many piles of glass shards, his hands coated in blood and his clothes tattered in places.

Keith treads around the broken jewels carefully, unsure of where to go from here. Lotor seems as if his life force has been drained. His head hangs low, his sapphire eyes look duller than the dusty ground, and even his shock of white hair seems to have lost its luster.

But Haggar, upon seeing Lotor, slowly gets up. She doesn’t flinch at the crystals that cut into her heels. In fact, she seems to relish in the trail of blood she paints from the clock tower to the glass-paved streets.

She sits down next to the lord, staring at him with distant eyes. She picks up one of the shattered flowers and hands it to Lotor. His face clouds over with confusion at first. But then he takes it, holding it in his grasp hesitantly, so unlike his usual assertive stance. His hands shake slightly. 

Keith watches from the shadow of the clock tower as he tries to catch his breath, wondering what happened to the half-crazed man he saw earlier, or the calm and level-headed one before they entered the morass. Here, Lotor looks almost too vulnerable to be believable. 

“What do you want me to do with this?” Lotor asks Haggar. His voice is tired and slow, as if he’s trying to remember how to speak.

Haggar shakes her head, eyes now locked on some point past the clock tower. Keith tries to follow her gaze, but all he sees is more decrepit jewel trees.

Haggar stands again and walks over to one of the silver-barked trees laden with tiny crystal flowers and blue gems the size of fists. She breaks one of the clusters of blossoms off from the tree, then looks back to where Lotor and Keith watch her with curiosity. Her gaze is clearer than ever now.

Keith caves first. He pushes off from the cool glass wall of the clock tower and goes to stand next to Haggar. Once he reaches her, she shoves the crystal in his direction.

Keith looks back at Lotor, but the lord just shrugs and holds his own flower closer.

Haggar gestures for Lotor to come over as well. He reluctantly gets to his feet, brushes off the chips of glass clinging to his clothes, and goes to stand next to Keith.

Keith turns to Haggar. “So... care to explain what’s going on?”

She studies the flowers as if they’re complex puzzles. Hell, they kind of are. All she says is, “Striga incantrix.”

She places one hand on each bunch of flowers, a speculative, pensive look on her face. A lot like Lotor’s, in fact. As she stares at the flowers, golden droplets begin to hover around her hands, like small beads of honey.

As the seconds draw out, more beads of light float to Haggar’s eyes; they settle in her hair, gather in the folds of her clothes like dust. Some are even drawn to the jewels clutched in each of their hands. Her robes and a few strands of her dull hair drift around her, as if underwater.

Soon, so many beads of golden light have gathered around Haggar and the jeweled flowers that they’re almost too bright to look at. All the pale sunlight has been stripped from the sky, turning it into a starless dusk. 

The same phenomenon that happened when Haggar got ahold of Keith’s crystal flower seems to be happening with the lights. The deep red grooves crossing from her cheeks to her chin are erased. Her wrinkles smooth out into rich dark skin. Her hair thickens into a gray-purple mane. 

She lurches suddenly, breaking her hold on the droplets of honeyed light. They scatter and return to the sky, in the form of stars this time. Keith sways on his feet and blinks quickly, trying to ground himself. The flower in his hand is so light that it doesn’t even feel like he’s holding anything, and when he looks down, he finds that the cluster of glass blossoms has transformed into... stardust. Or even a bundle of concentrated magic. It seems the only remotely accurate description for the mass of shimmering, infinitely colored light hovering in Keith’s cupped hands. 

Lotor’s flower has turned into something similar. Its sheen sifts through every color on the spectrum, as well as with some colors that Keith can’t even describe.

The magic is surprisingly slippery, and Keith makes a fool of himself trying to keep it from falling from his hands and pooling at his feet.

“Okay, um...,” he says, still juggling with his grasp on his ball of magic. “Ah! What do we do with these? Can they break?”

Haggar is absorbed in staring at the town with wide eyes, as if she’s never seen it before in her life. She turns to Keith and Lotor, pupils dilated to swallow the pale amber of her irises.

“My name,” she says slowly. Without a hint of befuddlement, as clear as the crystal leaves tinkling in the trees. “My name is Honerva.”

She takes a step forward, running her hand over one of the silver-barked trees. “How did I get stuck in a morass?”

“You tell us,” Lotor says.

She sits down on one of the protruding tree roots, looking dazed. She raises her arm, inspecting the old robes sagging over her lithe frame. “It is coming together in bits and pieces. I remember... someone with a mask? A jeweled mask....”

“The Magician,” Lotor says. “That was the Magician.”

Keith is still a little disconcerted in hearing Haggar - no, Honerva - talk in sane, coherent sentences.

“The Magician? Does that mean you are some of his players?” Her eyes widened. “I am a part of his Trials, aren’t I?”

Keith nodded semi-guiltily.

She looks irritated in being treated as just one of the Magician’s pawns in his Game. But she just shakes her head and returns to her pensive look. Her gaze flits from the magic clutched in Keith and Lotor’s hands to the town’s fissured main road, deep in thought.

Then, she stands. Honerva walks up to the clock tower, a smile spreading on her face. “I think I know just how to help you.”

Keith practically jumps at her words. He joins her at the base of the tower, following her gaze up to the enormous crystal clock ticking sporadically and occasionally whirring as it spins in faster circles. 

“We have to get up there,” Honerva says, already heading for the stairs. She winces with every step she takes. The pain of her sliced-up feet seems to be finally catching up to her.

Lotor follows a bit more reluctantly, cradling his pocket of magic the way you might hold a stray cat. Protectively, but not unaware of the danger it might pose. 

And up the stairs they go again; Keith has forgotten how many times he’s run up this winding stairwell. “Hey, hey!” he gasps. “What’s the rush? Care to explain your plan a bit more?”

She doesn’t slow down as she speaks - her rushed words match her somewhat frenetic breathing pattern. “Sometimes, to start anew, you have to destroy everything built before. And to accomplish that, it usually requires... a leap of faith, if you will.”

Keith wishes she could be more specific, but he’s too out of breath now to speak. Whereas the trip up and down the stairs appeared shorter before, now it seems to have doubled its length. Keith can’t even tell if it’s the morass that’s messing with them or the Magician himself.

They eventually reach the top of the tower, to find that the town outside is in the process of rapid deterioration. Thick emerald vines break through the ground to engulf the hapless shops. The sky has turned into a full, endless black sea.

The window still has a large fissure running from one side to the other from their scuffle with the crystal flower. Without any hesitation, Honerva crawls through it. She clings to the wall to keep from falling over the small ledge outside. The wind whips at her hair, bringing the color back to her skin and washing away the crazed gleam in her eyes. But Keith wonders if she actually has lost it, because she seems to be thrilled about hanging onto the edge of a clock tower from almost a hundred feet up.

She turns back to Keith and Lotor, smiling. “Now, come join me! This is how you win this Trial.”

Keith wonders if he could just take a couple jewels and leave on his own. Lotor did say that he had an easier time entering and exiting the morasses, right? He isn’t really in the mood to deal with crazy people today.

But Lotor pushes past him, tucking the cluster of magic under his arm as he does so, and steps out onto the ledge next to Honerva.

Oh, great. Now Keith has to deal with _two_ people with death wishes.

Honerva takes Lotor’s cluster of magic and takes two careful steps away from the window, so that she’s leaning dangerously close over the edge. The wind whispers at her feet, tauntingly; she wobbles for one heart-stopping moment; and then she throws out her arms, scattering the magic into the night. 

The light doubles its brightness, setting the sky on fire with marvelous colors. They transform into a thin sort of blanket that hovers around the middle of the clock tower, fluid and entirely unsubstantial.

“I have trusted you this far,” Lotor comments, “but even I have doubts about this.”

Keith glares at the both of them, but he inches closer to the window anyway. He shoves his own bundle of magic through the hole but doesn’t move any further than that.

Honerva threads the bits of magic through her fingers expertly so that they don’t slip out of her grasp the way they did for Keith. She makes a sort of cat’s cradle out of the liquid colors and light.

This time, she pulls out strands of the magic one by one, tying them around the enormous glass hands of the clock blaring with the mark of uneven seconds behind her. From his vantage point behind the window, Keith can’t tell what the magic is doing, but a few colorful sparks rain down on Honerva and Lotor.

Honerva continues this process until she only has a dusting of leftover magic on her hands. Then she motions for Keith to come out to join them. He tries to be stubborn, but his curiosity over what the threads of magic created soon overcomes that. He pokes his head through the hole in the window - cutting his cheek as he does so - and cranes his neck to peer up at the magic Honerva has worked on the clock tower.

The hands on the clock tower have been lashed together by the threads of magic Honerva threw up to them. They gleam in the night like woven quicksilver and appear as strong as iron. The clock’s hands groan as they try to break from of their chains. Shimmering and churning like waves just underneath the clock, the blanket of magic - or whatever it is - glows with the ferocity of a mirage in a desert, with a few sparks of color leaping up at random times as if trying to reach their friends in the sky.

“My theory is that this much magic hovering around the crux of this morass will totally reset something inside of it,” Honerva explains. “The cloak of magic below us, and the bindings around the clock each serve a purpose. This magic is shackling time itself in this morass. That is, bottling up the moments where this town gets so confused that it might one day implode on itself, and freezing that before it happens. As you can see, the town has stopped crumbling.” Her gesture encompasses the entire morass as far as the jewel trees near the edge.

Indeed, the vines that had been crawling up the buildings and across the streets at an alarming rate have frozen - they’ve even turned brittle and started crumbling.

“As for the cloak,” Honera says, waving towards the ocean of magic below them, which is slowly expanding, “it shall completely encompass this morass, turning it into a field of pure, undiluted magic. Quite dangerous, but extremely powerful.” Her eyes gleam at the prospect.

Then she seems to grab ahold of herself, snuffing out that wicked glint. She turns to look up at the clock’s numbers painted in huge gold lettering. “Now. All we have to do is get up to the top.”

Keith almost falls out of the window. “ _What?_ You want to climb all the way up _there?_ ”

Honerva frowns at him. “I thought you were the impulsive one.”

The tips of Keith’s ears redden. “Impulsive maybe, but not completely suicidal.”

Lotor snorts; Keith shoots a glare his way.

“Unless you want to do it?” Honerva turns to Lotor, an encouraging look in her eyes. “I believe you would have the resolve to do something as monumental as this.”

He’s back to wearing his mask of indifference. “How will this help us win this Trial?”

“It _will_ give us access to amounts of magic unimaginable,” she says. “Think about it! This could not only win you this Trial, but the entire Game of Marvels.” Those red marks are lengthening down her face again, giving her a ghastly, haunting look. “You might even become the next Magician.”

Keith distantly wonders if that’s like imagining yourself as a god, but that thought is overshadowed by the tingle of dread that plays its way down his spine as Honvera rolls up the sleeves of her robes and begins to scale the clock tower. There are many foot- and handholds for her to grasp - intricate designs carved into the glass, loose bricks and the like - so she makes her way to the top as easily as a spider would. It’s almost frightening to watch her climb with such agility and precision.

Once she’s at the top, standing on a platform only a little bigger than the one Lotor and Keith are on, she grabs ahold of the hands on the clock and pushes them with all her might.

With a long, low whine, the clock hands start spinning faster than should be possible. The threads of magic become a blur of kaleidoscope colors and fiery starlight as they pick up speed. With every full circle, a loud gong arises from the top of the tower, shaking the earth.

Even more terrifying - the number of emerald vines has tripled. They race through the streets like whips, destroying the pavement, bringing down buildings in single swipes. 

“I thought this was exactly what were were trying to prevent!” Keith calls. He isn’t even sure of Honerva can hear him over the booming of the clock, the whirring of the enormous glass hands, and the destruction of the town.

But Honerva looks down at him, and Keith almost wishes she never did. Her hair is streaked with white again, and wrinkles marr her face. “You have to demolish before you can build up again!” she reminds him. Her words don’t flow from her mouth, more than they’re snatched away from her before she can even finish. “This is your leap of faith.”

And then -

\- she jumps.

There’s nothing graceful about the way she falls. Keith expects her to hit the ground like a bag of rocks. But before that can happen, the cloak of magic rises up like a wave to catch her in its embrace and break her fall.

At least, that’s what it looks like for a split second, in a moment when Keith and Lotor can only watch.

But then, just as Honerva’s about to drop to the ground, a voice calls above the din of chaos, in an accent light and powerful as molten gold: “It was absolutely not supposed to happen this way!”

From under the cloud of magic, a figure clad in blue emerges. The Magician wears a sleek top hat and a velvet coat long enough to meet at his almost knee-high boots. He glares up at Honerva, his mask glowing as bright as the ribbons of magic wrapped around the clock hands.

The Magician raises his hands, and Honerva crashes through her magic safety net into the bushes of glass flowers growing at the base of the clock tower.

He looms over her, a blue rainstorm. “I knew I should have planned this better. But _noo,_ I had to trust some stupid cards.”

Then he looks up at the clock tower window. He breaks into a grin. “Oh, hey Keith!”

Keith spits at him.

The Magician is unfazed. “Why don’t you come down here? I can barely see you up there. You and your... companion.” He squints up at Lotor. “Who are you?”

Lotor shoots a bemused scowl in Keith’s direction. Whereas Keith just wishes he could hide up here in the clock tower forever if it means he doesn’t have to face Honerva or the Magician.

They aren’t given a choice in the matter, though. One snap of his fingers and Keith and Lotor are both trying to regain their balance in front of the Magician.

His carefully trimmed appearance and poise suggest that this is only a mild inconvenience, but his frazzled expression says otherwise. The clock is still making a racket, and the cloud of magic is still expanding, growing ferocious. At least the vines have completely disappeared.

“What happened here?” the Magician asks. “Wait, never mind. I’ll find out later. I don’t even know if I _want_ to find out. This isn’t how I planned for this Trial to be!”

“Well, maybe you should _plan ahead_ ,” Keith growls. 

The Magician ignores Keith’s comment. “And you are...?” he says, pointing at Lotor.

“Lotor, son of Lord Zarkon of the Isles of Daibazaal. I won your Game two years ago.”

Keith is too exhausted and confused to even react to this new bit of information about Lotor. “What are you doing here?” he asks the Magician.

But he’s not done interrogating Lotor. He seems to vaguely remember the lord, but a wave of irritation washes over his face. “And… why are you here? With Keith?” 

“We’re working together. My experience, along with his privileges, makes us a good team.”

“Not necessarily,” Keith mutters.

The Magician seems slightly concerned over this for some reason, but he brushes it off to deal with the more pressing issues at hand. Honerva had been knocked out when the Magician threw her from the air, but now she’s coming to. And she doesn’t look happy.

The loathing etched on her features could turn anyone to stone, but the Magician takes it in stride and pulls her up by her arm. “Care to explain what _that_ is?” He points at the mad, glowing sea of magic above them.

“That,” she says smugly, “is what will be your demise.”

 _He shall meet his demise soon,_ was what Honerva had said before. Now Keith wonders if that had been more than just a crazy woman’s ramblings.

“Yeah, sorry, that isn’t going to happen today,” the Magician says, and thrusts his hand up, spreading his fingers wide. With a look of intense concentration on his face, a shower of shimmering sparks rains down on them, stinging worse than any fire could. Then, a moment later, long ribbons of light fall in a heap at the Magician’s feet; presumably the cords binding the clock hands together. He snatches it up and waves it around like a flag.

The cloud of magic shifts its direction towards the ribbons almost instantly. It lunges faster than a falcon honing in on its prey, and devours it in half that time. 

The ribbons swirl around the cloud, making it glow silver from within, and increasing its size so drastically that it’s practically swallowed the clock tower whole in a matter of moments. It writhes in the sky like an injured animal, spouting sparks and feral colors and otherworldly screeches. 

“Okay, this is our cue to leave,” the Magician says, grabbing Keith’s wrist and breaking into a sprint toward the bushes of crystal flowers. He pushes aside the broken pieces to reveal a simple wooden trapdoor. The Magician’s seal glows a brilliant blue in the center.

As soon as he sees the exit, Lotor jumps in. Honerva tries to follow, but the Magician snatches up a chipped glass flower and throws it to her. She instinctively reaches up to the catch it, but as she does so, the magic beast spots it and dives for it as well. She screams and tries to find shelter, but all that's left of the morass is wild magic and sheer glass nothingness to be consumed.

 

They run through the cold stone tunnel for what feels like hours - but that may just be Keith’s exhausted limbs and dazed thoughts. He can’t even see the ground in front of him; everything in his vision has been replaced by a blinding yellow-white light. The only thing keeping him upright is the Magician’s steady grip on his wrist, his cool fingers grounding Keith better than any magic potion could. 

He doesn’t expect the Magician’s legs to give out first, but eventually, he collapses, bringing Keith down with him. Lotor, in turn, trips over Keith and goes sprawling. 

The Magician hops up almost instantly, but Keith can’t find the strength to stand again. He rolls onto his back, his vision swimming. Every part of him burns bright and painful, like a dying star. And the floor is soft and warm, and so, so inviting. He feels like he’s sinking into this carpet, and honestly can’t think of anything better to do at the moment.

He hears a voice above him, but he can already feel himself drifting…. 

Then he’s rudely awakened by a slap to the face. He sits up, shaking his head as if to dislodge the spiderwebs of sleep from his mind.

The Magician’s reproachful voice floats down to Keith’s ears. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing!” Lotor protests. “What makes you think I did something to him anyway? This is all your fault for setting up that Trial so poorly.”

“Oh, yeah, about that,” the Magician fumes. “You lose this one!”

Keith stumbles to his feet and glares at the Magician. “What do you mean we lose?”

“I mean, you lose! You didn’t complete the Trial, didn’t even get close because that woman Honerva dragged you off course.”

“And what happened to her?” Keith asks. His pain momentarily fuses with the white-hot fury crawling into his field of vision. “You just abandoned her in that collapsing morass?”

The Magician falters. “W-well... she was unstable! I put her in there as an obstacle, she was only supposed to misguide you for a while. How was I supposed to know you would activate more magic in the morass than humans can handle?”

Keith sways on his feet. He still feels like collapsing at any second, and he can’t seem to hold on to any emotions besides fatigue. He grabs onto a sconce burning with blue flames to steady himself. 

But when he looks up at the Magician, he almost falls over anyway. His hands and eyes glow silver-blue, lending an uncanny resemblance to Honerva’s.

“What happened to _you_?” Keith asks, stumbling away.

The Magician’s hands flutter to his eyes, as if he didn’t realize he was glowing. “Oh,” is all he says. “After-effect of too much exposure to raw magic, I guess.”

Keith looks down at himself, half-expecting to find himself glowing too. But of course all he finds is the same untucked dress shirt (now horribly wrinkled and dirty) and pants spattered with blood. He looks over at Lotor, who’s in a similar state. The lord sits on the floor, his head bowed.

“Whatever,” he says, regaining his composure. “But... what happens when we lose a Trial?”

The Magician wrinkles his nose. “About that... usually, the only way to lose a Trial is to, er, die. I’ve never had an entire morass collapse in on itself from the sheer weight of so much magic before. You’ve ruined the chances for anyone to win this Trial after you, so congratulations on that, I guess.”

His tone says that he really isn’t congratulating them. More like cursing their existences.

The Magician shakes his head, then turns back to Keith. He seems to be ignoring Lotor’s presence in the tiny hallway. “So, in this case, I guess we’ll have to have a retry. That could be arranged in such short notice I suppose….” He groans. “See all the stress you’re causing me? You’re making me go prematurely gray!”

“Your hair is white,” Keith points out.

“Hardly the point!”

A half-formed retort is already rising to Keith’s tongue when another wave of dizziness overwhelms him. He staggers away from the Magician, who instinctively leaps toward him as if pulled on puppet strings.

“Lotor,” Keith gasps. “How are you holding up?” In his chest, his heart stutters for a moment, before completely stopping for a full three seconds. He curses loudly when it starts up again.

The false prince glances up. Half of his face is obscured by a curtain of dusty white hair. If his eyes looked like chips of sapphire before, they now resemble crushed black opals. Glimmers of light suffocating behind black pupils. 

“Well, I could certainly be feeling better,” Lotor says, his voice dripping with bitter sarcasm. 

It’s even more impossible to read the Magician’s face with his eyes glowing so brightly. But he looks... concerned? That can’t be right.

Keith closes his eyes and presses his forehead against the cool wall. He just needs to sleep. He’s just exhausted, nothing more….

But the Magician has other plans. Keith hears the rustle of fabric and a cork stopper being pulled out, then a crisp scent like fresh snow mixed with roses fills the hall.

The Magician taps Keith’s shoulder and holds out a small pink vial. “Drink,” he says forcefully. “If you think what’s happened to me is bad, then the damage you’ve sustained from all that magic is three times as bad for you.”

“Give it to Lotor,” Keith mumbles. He has no desire to drink strange things handed to him by an even stranger person.

The Magician sighs, but he obliges. A minute later he’s back with an identical vial in his hand shoved in Keith’s face. His expression is stony.

Keith soon realizes that the Magician isn’t going to back down. He snatches the vial from his grasp and downs it all in one gulp.

Immediately he feels better. Still exhausted, bruised, and broken, sure, but at least not like he’s trapped inside the sun. “Thanks,” he mumbles reluctantly.

“No problem,” the Magician says. Keith can’t decide if his voice sounds smug or simply relieved. “But I’d still recommend a day of rest. The Game will still be here the next day.”

Keith finally loses his battle with his tipsy balance. He collapses in the middle of the hallway. “What exactly is in that thing?”

The Magician crouches down next to Keith to hold his gaze. “Little bits of what can only be described as ‘anti-magic.’ Though the after-effects can be a little... unfortunate. Oh dear, your companion’s about to go.”

As if he didn’t even know Lotor’s name. Keith glances over at the lord in question, and indeed, he’s struggling - and failing - to keep his eyes open.

Keith fights extreme vertigo as best he can, he really does, but if these are the Magician’s arms wrapped around him that are so warm and comforting, he can’t even seem to care. Right now there’s just the beguiling scent of moonlight, the ocean, and delectable secrets.


	5. Histories

Of all the things to dream about, Keith didn’t think it would be a glowing golden pear tree. The sky is split down the middle, and drops of what looks like honey ooze from it. A giant glob lands on Keith’s head. He winces. It almost doesn’t feel like a dream; he’s hyper-aware of everything in this small, white room, including the uncomfortable feeling he gets from the dozens of mirrors lining the walls. His reflection wavers in the mirrors like ripples in a lake. He looks away, choosing to focus on the tree in the center of the room instead.

Tiny blue and white flowers blanket the base of the tree like snow. But it’s the huge golden pears that catch Keith’s attention. They hang heavy from their branches, and short snippets of miscellaneous things seem to shift inside of them.

Keith reaches out and plucks one from the tree. Inside, there’s an image of the Magician, of all people. Except, it’s not really the Magician. His hair is brown instead of white, and he’s missing his signature mask and clothes dripping with wealth. He sits under an elm tree overlooking the ocean - a place Keith recognizes. It’s a cliff that he used to always hang around if he wanted to ditch his classes at the Garrison for the day. He recalls the place always being windy and gray, but that can also be said about the entire island. Still, tranquility clings to the boughs and drips from the leaves, a beacon of sorts.

Lance - for that’s who he is, not the Magician yet - sits with his back turned to the person watching him. As they get closer, he turns around and smiles at them, waving energetically.

Keith wakes to find that same cheerful face staring back at him. But then he notices the pointed ears and the jeweled white mask. Lance is lost in a watery memory in a white room; here stands the Magician.

The second thing Keith notices is the velvety canopy bed he’s in. Nothing like the heavenly mattress he’s - guiltily - gotten used to in the past week or so. He feels like he’s drowning in this bed.

He wipes the blurriness from his eyes. “Where am I?”

The Magician shrugs. “Random bedroom in the Castle. Your rooms are too far away, and you’re heavy. But yeah, that’s a nice thing about this place. I desire, the Castle provides.”

The memories don’t stay complacent for long. They come crashing down on Keith before he’s even gotten all his bearings together, everything about the last Trial that he would have much rather forgotten.

He glances around the room again, but no, it’s just the two of them in here. “Where’s Lotor?”

“Oh, well, I could only carry you here, but I hailed a prodigy, so he’s probably recovering back in his own rooms by now.”

Keith frowns. Considering the cold shoulder he showed the lord last time, he’s not all that surprised that the Magician just left him in the hallway he passed out in. He really does seem to have tunnel vision; Keith doesn’t know if this is for better or for worse.

He swings his legs over the side of the bed and subtly starts edging toward the door. “Well, that’s great and all, really. I feel better now! So thanks for that, but I gotta get going….”

The Magician’s face falls. “Oh, but I haven’t given you your clue for the next Trial. Mini-Trial, I guess.”

That makes Keith hesitate.

The Magician picks up the tarot wheel sitting on the bedside table. He looks utterly frazzled. His hair is slightly curly, the unnatural glow of his eyes has started to fade, and he’s the closest to looking human that Keith’s ever seen him. “I’ve been evaluating some things, comparing statistics, debating with my prodigies, and…”

Keith eyes the Magician’s hands tracing the silver moon on his tarot wheel - almost like a nervous tick. “You mean you’ve been spinning that wheel nonstop hoping it’ll provide answers.” 

The Magician bristles, but he doesn’t deny Keith’s claim.

“So did you figure anything out?” Keith asks, leaning on the doorway.

The Magician pulls out a couple cards and studies them. He sighs. “I don’t usually make plans without Allura, but at the moment I can’t seem to locate her. She does that sometimes - just disappears off the map.

“But to answer your question,” he continues, “yes, I do. In fact, I’m giving you a head start.”

He snaps his fingers, and the tarot cards transform into a simple letter like the first clue Keith received. He holds it out to Keith, and as much as he wants to take it and devour it greedily, he shakes his head. “You keep giving me all these special privileges. For once, just treat me like the rest of your contestants.”

The Magician’s eyes flicker with disappointment. “Well, that’s kind of the point of being my personal guest. You get privileges the others don’t.”

“Do you always give your personal guests gifts and an absurd amount of hints and head starts?” Keith asks, crossing his arms.

The Magician doesn’t respond, which is answer enough. He waves his hand, and the letter becomes a tarot wheel again. Then he turns away and crosses his arms.

“Oh, come on,” Keith says. “Are you really going to act like that right now? You’re the _Magician._ ”

“And apparently that’s not enough for you,” he snarks. “Go be all high and mighty then, who cares? I just thought it was common courtesy, but I guess I’ve overstepped my boundaries.”

Did Keith really want to deal with this? He decided pretty quickly that he didn’t.

“Okay, well, I’m going to try and find my way back to my rooms now, so you can send your little clues to me then, _when the rest of your contestants have also received them._ ”

The Magician spins on his heel to look back at Keith with wide eyes. His grin is completely devoid of the sullen waves he’d been giving off just moments earlier. “Oh no,” he says. “If you want the same treatment as the rest of my players, you’re going to get it. You have to play for your next clue.”

Upon seeing Keith’s irritated look, he waves his hands, as if brushing aside Keith’s concerns.

“It won’t be that hard; after all, we lost some time with the last Trial.”

The Magician leans against the bedpost, his nonchalance vexing, like everything else about him.

Keith groans and slams the door behind him.

“My prodigies will give you more information in due time!” the Magician calls behind him.

 

It’s two days before that happens. Keith spends most of his time in the nearest library. It is _huge_ \- three whole floors, a labyrinth of shelves and ancient, important-looking tomes. He’d gotten tired of staying locked up in his room, and the library is relatively abandoned.

He finds a book on tarot cards and gets to reading up on their meanings. The Magician, the card he keeps pulling, symbolizes deceit, confusion, and ill intentions, when reversed. Keith wonders what that means for his future. 

He turns another page, then realizes that someone is watching him, has been for a while. He looks up and has to blink several times before he gathers his thoughts.

Allura stands in front of him, her hair cascading over her shoulder in a silvery cloud, her head tilted to the side in a way that would look innocent if it weren’t for her shrewd, piercing gaze. A golden tiara glints on her forehead. Constellations glint across the bodice of her gown, pooling into a blue galaxy in the full skirt. A matching mask covers the top half of her face.

“What do you want?” Keith asks. The brilliance of her gown is already giving him a headache.

“I see you are reading up on tarot meanings,” Allura said. “That’s rather fitting, considering what I came here for.”

“And what is that?”

She opens her eyes, peering at Keith through thick lashes. The light catches in the pink flecks in her eyes, melting into orange. “Do you wish to win?”

The truth is, he doesn’t really know anymore. But he nods anyway.

Her smile is laced with a tangible sorrow. The expression leaves Keith unsettled, though he can’t place exactly why. “Wonderful. I don’t suppose you have your tarot wheel with you, do you?”

She doesn’t wait for him to respond. She clasps her hands, and when she opens them again, a tarot wheel unfolds like a page in a pop-up book. It’s larger and much fancier than Keith’s - the orb floating in the center is carved from sapphire, and the moon has a huge, pale blue stone embedded in the top of the crescent moon.

Allura raises an eyebrow, the playful light in her eyes a drastic difference to the heavy expression she wore just moments ago. She spins the wheel and says, “Pick three.”

Keith chooses the first cards he manages to grasp. As soon as he’s picked three, the wheel stops spinning.

Allura takes the cards from his hand before he can see what he picked. She spreads them across the table.

They don’t look like the tarot cards Keith has been reading up on, which kind of makes him feel like all this research has been for nothing, but Allura starts reciting their meanings nevertheless.

She points at the one in the middle. A bronze sun in the center surrounded by those swirl-patterned flowers that caused Keith so much trouble in the last failed Trial. 

“Striga Incantrix,” she says. “It is one of my most potent cards. It symbolizes a loss of something hidden, yet dear to you.”

Keith’s eyes widen. _Striga incantrix_ is what Honerva said when she regained her memories. (Not her sanity, by any means - she made that abundantly clear - but her memories at the least.)

Allura turns over the next card and frowns. “Lazarus Lantern. It has many different meanings, one of the most volatile cards.”

Keith stares at the card for a very long time. The design is simple enough, with a red paper lantern hanging from a string. Upon closer inspection, though, he can make out a tiny person sitting curled up in the center, where the candle should be. It doesn’t matter though, since their eyes glow bright enough to make up for the candle’s light.

“I created this card to represent confusion and hidden power, but it has... evolved. They do that sometimes.”

"That’s... the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Allura smiles faintly. “You and me both.”

“So what do they symbolize now?”

Her voice is clipped when she says, “Wrong turns and sidequests. Occasionally, it might symbolize help from the most unlikely sources, or, well... temporary death.”

Keith shivers. “That’s really specific. How many times do people pull that card?”

“Well, like I said, it’s evolved over time.”

She flips over the last card. This one appears more normal - just a bottle containing a bubbling liquid that looks like champagne. Instead of a cork, a ribbon soaked through with red dye is stuffed into the neck of the bottle. The excess dye drips into the liquid, swirling into the other contents.

“Poison Present,” Allura says. “It is not exactly a fortune-telling card so much as a card to alert that something is terribly wrong and probably has been for a very long time. It usually warns that something dangerous will come of this.”

Keith blinks. “Like what?”

“You depend too much on the notion that I know everything about these cards and their meanings,” Allura says, somewhat amusedly. “I am only a prodigy, after all.”

She pushes back her chair and stands up, taking her tarot wheel with her. She places Keith’s three cards in front of him. “Good luck on your Trial. Really.”

She turns around and begins to walk away, but then pauses to look back at him at the last second. “Oh, I almost forgot! I still owe you one more clue.”

She leans forward, revealing a necklace of crudely-cut crystal in the shape of a sickle. The various angles and notches cast uneven blotches of pale colors across the surface of the table.

“You know, usually the Magician likes to explore different morasses with each Trial, even creating ones out of scratch sometimes. But this time he seems to be sticking to less high-risk places. I wonder why that is.” She shoots him a conspiratorial smile. “I’m just saying there’s no need to go overboard this time. Stick to what’s right in front of you. You have until the eighteenth of August.”

She turns and disappears behind the nearest bookshelf, leaving Keith with those three cards clutched in his hand, mind spinning.

The eighteenth of August. That’s over a week. More than enough time, at least in theory, but Keith remembers hearing something about the lengths of each Trial being approximate to their difficulty.

“Great, well, let’s take inventory here,” Keith mutters to himself, flipping the cards over as if that will help him. “It seems that my future contains lots of detours, poison, and possibly temporary death.”

He stares at the cards for another heartbeat.

Well, what’s the Magician’s Game without cryptic warnings and dire circumstances? He closes the tarot book and gathers up his cards.

 

“Well, there is an apothecary nearby,” the prodigy says, inspecting Keith’s cards. “That could mean something, I guess.”

“All right. Thanks.” Keith pockets the cards and heads in the direction the prodigy had pointed to. It’s a shop on the far end of a side street, near the small river mostly used for spectators to observe the participants at least somewhat inconspicuously. (Keith’s already had to take multiple detours and wrong turns to shake off a couple people; but they’re persistent as fleas, and he keeps finding them lurking around corners, scribbling furiously into little notebooks and chattering to each other. Strange that he never noticed them before Lotor told him about them.)

He’d spent a bit of time thinking about Allura’s clues/insinuations and had eventually decided to start with the town. That wasn’t high-risk, was it? From what he’d seen so far of the place, it seemed to mostly consist of small-end shops and boutiques, prodigies and townspeople milling about, and the occasional aggressive storybook creature.

The sun was already beginning to sink by the time Keith set out, and it’s completely disappeared before he reaches the apothecary. More and more people are beginning to wander the streets because of this, and he enters the shop mainly to get away from them. The entire place leaves a bad taste in his mouth and a knot in his throat, with its yellow-green lights and clusters of dazzling, clinking bottles, so he decides to make this trip as quick as possible.

As soon as Keith enters the shop he’s accosted by an overly enthusiastic salesperson. It’s a girl maybe a little younger than himself, holding a couple of bottles filled with bright liquids in her arms. The glittering lights of the shop illuminate each individual strand of her golden hair, casting a halo around her head. She wears a green dress accented by violets in full bloom around the shoulders.

She lunges at Keith before he’s even closed the door behind himself. “Hello,” she says, voice as light and ringing as bells. “Is this your first time visiting this establishment? May I treat you to samples of our latest potions, such as this one that allows you to summon rain? Or perhaps a more personal piece, in which case this one might do you good; it’s a potion to let you see the deeper depths of your soul.”

“I don’t...”

“Not to your tastes? Well, we also have -”

“Let him breathe, Romelle,” comes a voice from the back of the shop. Keith turns to see a scruffy boy with messy chestnut hair poking his head out of a curtain of beads. “He won’t buy anything if you shove the contents of the entire store at him.”

He trains his bright gaze on Keith then. “Sorry about my sister, she gets a little overzealous at times.”

Romelle pouts. “And you trust our customers too easily.”

The boy ignores his sister’s retort. Instead, he takes off a pink glass bottle off a high shelf (almost knocking over the shelf in the process), and tosses it to Romelle. She catches it and shakes out a small hard candy the same color as her dress. “Here you go,” she says, handing it to Keith.

He holds it up close to study it. It smells like lilies and ripe plums. “How am I supposed to know this isn’t poison?”

“Well, I guess you don’t know, do you? Not truly.” Romelle frowns. “But tell me: what could we possibly gain from poisoning you? It’s meant to open your eyes and mind to the more important things. We carry a wide variety of products, so this makes it all a little more efficient. And fun.”

Keith nods hesitantly, and without a second thought, he pops it into his mouth. Despite the enticing smell, it tastes overwhelmingly like garlic. He coughs and curses, but the damage is done. When he opens his eyes again, nothing seems to have changed. 

Romelle flashes Keith an innocent smile and disappears behind a shelf labeled “Lessons in Love.”

He begins to wander the shop, eyeing the strange labels and mismatched containers - they range from dainty vials to tall jars to heavy glass bottles.

His eye catches on a particularly bright vial carved from rough crystal. The light bounces off it and fractures into smaller pieces of color, casting dancing lights across the floor. In other words, just like the necklace Allura was wearing when she read his fortune.

“Oh! Strange that you would find that one,” Romelle comments from behind him, making him jump about a foot in the air. “No one’s ever looked twice at it for as long as we’ve run the shop.”

Keith looks back at the bottle again. Dust coats the shelf around it. He picks it up, tentative. It feels... sacred. Like a tiny shrine is encased in the coarse crystal. 

Something’s weighing on her mind, some kind of old, painful wound. It’s obvious in the purposefully empty expression she assumes as she looks over the tiny vial in Keith’s hand. “If you ask me, you shouldn’t touch that. I think it might be cursed. Makes sense, considering it’s been banned by the Magician.”

“Banned? Why?”

She purses her lips and turns away, occupying herself with rearranging a shelf of brightly-colored bottles. “You’ll have to ask my brother on that. I’m just the one in charge of selling the things he creates.”

“What’s your brother’s name?”

Her hands still on the shelf. “Bandor.”

Keith makes for the room obscured by the beaded curtain. “Bandor! I need you to tell me what the deal is with this potion thing.”

He finds Romelle’s brother hunched over a large desk, goggles perched in his curly head of hair. He only looks up when Keith slams the potion down in front of him.

“Can you tell me what this is?” Keith asks. 

Bandor jolts upright, knocking over a pile of papers and a couple empty glass bottles in the process. He tears off his dirt-smudged goggles. “Yes? What can I -”

Upon seeing the vial, Bandor snaps his goggles back on and pretends to busy himself with his work once more. “I’m sorry, I cannot help you with that. Romelle will assist you in any purchases you may need.”

Keith frowns. “What if I want to buy this?”

“It’s not for sale.” For good measure, Bandor snatches the vial away and shoves it into one of his desks’ many tiny drawers.

“I’ll... I’ll complain to your manager.”

“I _am_ my manager.”

It’s at this point that he’s getting desperate. Not that Keith would have gone through with such a threat, he isn’t petty, but Bandor doesn’t know that.

“I hear it’s cursed,” Keith says, absently running his finger over a whorl in the desk’s design. Bandor watches his hand warily.

Keith’s hand stills just before he strikes, lunging for the drawer. “So tell me what the hell is up with that potion!”

Bandor anticipates his move and slaps his hand away with reflexes faster than Keith didn’t even know were possible. He recoils and holds up his hands awkwardly. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just... I’m tired of being the dark about everything.”

Bandor slowly reaches for the drawer and opens it. He places the kaleidoscopic vial on the edge of the desk, staring at it as if it’ll explode any moment. Then he rests his elbows on the desk and tents his fingers, assuming the proper stance to tell an ancient, dangerous myth. Keith stands over him, trying to hide his anticipation.

“As far as I can remember, it’s made from the juice of the striga incantrix flower. Used to be pretty rare, even around here, but then the Magician came along and now you can find it practically around every street corner.”

From his experiences so far, Keith can attest to that. First the carousel, then the morass, then the card, and now this? The Magician really needs to come up with more symbolic items, but then again, who is he to complain?

“Why has it been banned?” Keith asks, inspecting the bottle from all angles. It seems too fragile to contain the kind of potion Bandor speaks of, but he knows by now not to take appearances too seriously.

Bandor starts getting fidgety again. “No one really knows. It’s old, for one of our products - like, maybe a decade or more. Around the time the Magician set up the Game of Marvels. My parents always said he made the potion himself.”

“He sure has his fingers in a lot of pies, huh?” Keith sighs. “Should have expected it.”

“Well, he used it to create most of the island.”

Keith shoots him a puzzled look. “The island’s fake?”

“No!” Bandor gasps, affronted. “He added the morasses, which aren’t technically part of the island, but they’re kind of like little mini-islands in alternate realities, but he also brought a bit of it up from the ocean floor, since it had been flooded years ago. Then he shortened the days, though I don’t know where he got that idea from. But there’s nowhere near enough in here to work that level of magic anymore.”

“He made his own potion to build magic islands and give the night a couple more hours?”

“Yes, and we’re better off for it,” Bandor says, his expression stony, daring Keith to argue against the Magician. His followers are genuine, fiercely loyal to him, and it’s almost frightening.

“Okay, okay,” Keith says, leaning farther away from Bandor. “So why do you have it?”

Bandor falls silent, his eyes fixed on the vial for a long time. Keith shifts from one foot to another, afraid to speak up lest he get kicked out of the shop for good.

“It wasn’t his fault, or his prodigies, or anyone else involved,” the apothecary says eventually, more forcefully than Keith expected. “I just want you to know that. I don’t want to blame anyone for the circumstances that brought this potion into our possession.” He takes a deep breath before continuing. “As I said, we acquired this about ten years ago, around the time the Magician was reconstructing the Castle of Lions. Our parents... they were pretty influential in the design of the place, stood by the Magician as he watched over things.

“This potion was meant to aid in the creation of the Castle, though I don’t know how.” Bandor sighs. “Now that I think about it, our parents were pretty secretive about that entire project in general. Romelle and I... we were only kids.” 

He shoots a glance towards Keith, looking genuinely apologetic despite his rudeness. Keith just stands there, feeling too large for the room.

“Something happened, something went wrong, they never went into detail. All I know is that one day a prodigy was at our doorstep telling us that our parents were dead. Killed while testing one of the Magician’s secret rooms. They didn’t -” His breath catches in his throat, but he steadies himself and continues. “They didn’t give us any more information. We still don’t know anything about it.

“All they did was give us this vial. They told us to put it on the shelf and keep it safe until the time came to use it or give it away, though they didn’t elaborate on when that would be.”

 _Stick to what’s right in front of you._ Allura’s voice rings in his head, and at the moment this crystal vial looks pretty obviously like a clue. And he won’t let the apothecary’s sob story sway him from winning this Trial.

Which makes him wonder: when did he become so callous all in the name of the Game of Marvels?

Bandor stays silent after that, and Keith lasts about half a minute of this awkward grieving moment before he blurts, “Considering all this, I’d think you would be eager to get rid of it.”

Bandor stares at him for a long time, long enough to make Keith extremely uncomfortable in his own skin, more so than he has been this entire conversation.

Finally, Bandor says quietly, “I don’t really know. Perhaps because it makes me feel like one day, someday, I’ll figure it all out.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Romelle and I don’t talk about it much.”

He looks up at Keith then, teal eyes wide and determined. “Take it. For whatever purposes you may need it for, I bet it will be far more useful than it is now, sitting on a shelf collecting dust.”

Keith blinks a couple times, taken aback at Bandor’s boomerang response. But he recovers quickly and snatches up the vial and holds it close to his chest before the apothecary can change his mind. “Thank you,” he says haltingly. “How much is it worth?”

Bandor’s lips quirk into a tiny ghost of a smile. “That’s Romelle’s area of the business, not mine.”

Keith nods curtly. Without another word, he pulls back the beaded curtain and walks out into the main room of the shop. He finds Romelle partially hidden behind a shelf sparsely decorated with wooden baskets and exotic-looking plants.

At the sight of Keith, she plasters on the same honey grin that she wore when he first entered the shop, though this time that same weary sorrow weighs the corners down. “Yes? What could I help you with now?”

Keith opens his palm to reveal the shimmering crystal vial. “I’d like to know how much this will cost me.”

“Didn’t my brother tell you that wasn’t for sale?”

Keith raises an eyebrow. “He changed his mind.”

Romelle’s brows furrow, and she thinks for a minute before speaking. “Alright then,” she says, resigned and defiant at the same time. “If you ever get the chance to talk to the Magician, ask him what was so important about his strange room that was worth our parents’ deaths.”

A fair enough trade. Keith nods and brushes past Romelle, out into the chill night air. She doesn’t try to stop him. In fact, when Keith catches sight of her in the window, she seems grateful for his departure. A wave of shame washes over Keith. As insistent as he’d been, he doesn’t want to ever have to be so pitiless to get what he wants from the Magician’s Game.

The Magician. This is all his fault. Keith shakes his head and quickens his pace down the wooden walkway. Damn sure he’ll ask him all about Romelle and Bandor’s parents’ deaths as soon as he gets the chance. They deserve some closure, at the very least.

Keith pulls out the crystal vial, studying it from all angles. It’s about the size of his pointer finger, its stopper a tiny piece of diamond carved in the form of a heart.

He pulls on the stopper, but it doesn’t budge. He tugs on it with his teeth, but it still doesn’t give way. Sighing, he shoves it back into the pocket hidden in his sleeve. (It’s a strange shawl-type thing he’s wearing - just one long strip of crimson cloth wrapped around his head and upper body, but it keeps him warm and leaves room to stash things in, so it’s kind of grown on him.)

He wanders down a steep set of stone stairs past a prodigy sitting under the shadow of a cafe sifting through a box at their feet for no apparent reason. When he tries to look closer at them, their image flickers and fades into the shadows. He continues on, unnerved, even though he’s seen much stranger things in the town in just the past few hours.

Keith finds himself waiting by one of the boat stops, standing under a sign advertising the fees. One treasured memory, to be borrowed for an hour, for one boat ride through the town. He wonders what anyone would want to do with the treasured memories of strangers.

He sits on the steps of the canal and watches the dark-blue-and-silver water. If anything, it will give him more of a perspective on the town.

It takes around half an hour for another boat to come around; Keith spends that time counting as many lanterns as he can find. His mind works sluggishly, and all he can seem to do is notice the smallest, most mundane of things, like the weeds growing from the cracks in the stone steps of the canal (which are glowing faintly), or the way every other lantern flickers on and off wearily. If the Magician is so almighty, shouldn’t he be able to make his town’s lanterns work properly?

When a boat finally arrives, Keith’s thoughts catch up to him. He is here for a reason - he has to figure out these clues and pass this Trial. The person manning the boat raises their eyebrow at him. Complying to their unspoken question, he steps into the boat. It’s relatively humble - sleek and dark, the inside lined with slightly scuffed red cushions.

“Anywhere specific?” they ask. Their half mask marks them as a prodigy. It’s of a simple design, the only adornment being matching green feathers protruding from the temples. The pure white of their mask matches their Cheshire grin. They’re wearing a peculiar vest with flaring coattails, a hood to cover their hair, and a deep red sash tied around the waist.

It takes a moment for Keith to process their question. “Oh... no, wherever is good.”

They nod and start rowing, indifferent. Keith sits as far away from them as possible, hunched up. They both stay like that for a while, just watching the town drift by. So far, there’s much of the same - dimly lit lanterns, stone and dirt walkways, people flitting through the shops and alleyways like ghosts. The prodigy manning the boat is grinning the whole time, almost unnaturally so.

So it’s a surprise when they finally speak, even if it’s just to say, “You want light?”

“Um, all right,” he says, caught off guard. Their smirk is unnerving, to say the least.

They take out a slip of paper, fold it into a square, and balance it on their fingertip. It begins to flash, a dim yellow-green light pulsing from the center. When it finally manages a steady glow, the prodigy tosses it up into the air, where it hovers above the front of the boat.

Eventually, the paper lanterns are replaced with ones made of black metal, nailed into the walls of the buildings. People become scarcer, replaced by empty restaurants and statues that seem just a little too realistic. The canal grows wider, the water becomes blacker. Soon the prodigy is docking at a small, wooden boat with a round room in the center floating in a man-made lake. Tiny red lights are strung along the base, tainting the water with pinpricks of color. The prodigy jumps off the boat and ties it to one of the railings. They run around the boat, looking into each rectangular window in the room, squinting through the yellow light spilling from them.

Keith stands uncertainly in the boat and slowly makes his way over to the other boat/island, trying his best not to topple over into the water. The town’s lights are far away now, though he could have sworn they’d been surrounded by buildings just a minute ago. 

“Hey!” he calls out to the prodigy as he stumbles onto the much sturdier island boat. “Why are we stopping here?”

They turn back to him, that ever-present grin having not lost any of its brilliance. It makes Keith wary, to see such fox-like glee painted on their features. Like they know something Keith doesn’t, and they take great joy in it, too.

But all they do is pull out another slip of paper from their sash, this time folding it into a miniature lantern. “I would like my payment now if you please. Just place this on your head and think very hard about a fond memory.”

“Really?” Keith frowns. 

“Just do it, or else I’m abandoning you on this island.”

He eyes the lantern skeptically but does as they instructed, feeling extremely stupid. He searches his mind for anything that shines a warm light down in his memory, and it takes a while before something comes to him: a clear image of an elm tree about a mile away from the Garrison, perched on the edge of a sheer cliff. The same one, in fact, that he saw in his dream, the one Lance-not-yet-the-Magician had been sitting under looking so out of place and yet fitting so seamlessly into the setting.

He opens his eyes to find the prodigy staring at him eagerly, practically an inch away from his face. Their eyes are honey-colored in the yellow light emanating from the island boat’s windows, and there’s something familiar in their gaze that Keith can’t place.

They hardly let him take a breath before they snatch the lantern off from his head and peer into it. There’s now a tiny light flickering deep inside, and a vague part of his mind realizes what it is, but when he tries to envision the specifics of what it might be, all that comes up is what feels like a heavy gold veil obscuring it from his mind’s eye. A treasured memory lost just like that.

The prodigy’s face falls when they catch a glimpse of whatever is tucked away inside the lantern. “Well, _you’re_ rather anticlimactic.”

Keith bristles. “What do you need it for, anyway?”

“You should really guard your secrets better,” they say as they fold up the origami lantern and slip it back into their sash. “They’re pretty much the most valuable currency here, and the possibilities are endless with the right information available.”

He scowls. Their eyes have shifted to a pale amber in the light, and the gold veil flutters. “You sound like...” 

Oh. Oh, no. That is not possible. There is no way -

Keith rushes forward, tugs the prodigy’s hood off, and pushes them into the light all before they can even react. Fluffy hair the color of honey and peanut butter and autumn leaves depending on the lighting, and eyes to match. A grin that could only be fueled by the wonder and incredulity of a dream finally come true in ways that couldn’t have been anticipated.

“Wh-?”

But he doesn’t even get time to process this new revelation before they let out a small cry and blink out of existence right before Keith’s eyes. The only sign that they were ever there is a sliver of wavering light like a mirage folded in on itself where they were standing just half a moment before.

Keith stumbles back into the island boat’s wooden railing. 

Of all the people and creatures he’s crossed paths with during the Game, what the hell is _Pidge_ doing here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Terribly sorry this took so long.) I told myself I'd post this before season 8 came out, and since I'm a major procrastinator I decided a few hours before midnight on December 13th would be a good time ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Anyways, at this point I suggest we induce copious amounts of alcohol and await the inevitable blast. See y'all in the aftermath


	6. Golden Eyes

Nothing makes sense anymore. If Pidge is here on the Magician’s island, who else could? Keith knows that’s an irrational thought, but right now really doesn’t seem like the time for anything but. He’s been consumed by anxiety, confusion, fury, the entire spectrum of emotion all bottled up in his chest.

Keith stays on the boat island for some time, wandering through the small circular room and back onto the deck again. The yellow light spilling from the room’s open windows illuminates only the deck and not much farther, and Keith is left staring out at the distant town lights debating whether they’ve gotten farther away or not since the last time he looked over at them. 

He doesn’t know a single thing about the circumstances of Pidge’s presence but he is certain of one thing: it’s dangerous. It doesn’t matter if Pidge is playing as a prodigy, or has been taken under the Magician’s wing, or whatever. She’s just the kind of person to become too wrapped up in the Game and get swept away by the miracles and mystery of the whole thing. She’d always been easily distracted by unknown things.

And it’d be as good incentive as anything to get going, if the boat Keith arrived on hadn’t disappeared along with Pidge the new false prodigy. And there’s nothing, not a motor or anything, that would propel the boat/island out of its peaceful drifting in the middle of the lake.

So, in short, he’s stuck here. 

He paces the deck, cursing and calling out to Pidge in the off chance that she’ll be hiding in the pockets between worlds that the Magician seems to be so fond of. Perhaps she has been granted that privilege.

He peers into every window, but all he finds in the little wooden room is mismatched furniture and the ghost of a presence. “Pidge, I know you’re around here somewhere, I can sense it!”

It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to find the actual entrance to the room, since the doorway is only a bit larger than the windows. Once inside, though, he collapses on one of the ink-blue cushioned couches and stares up at the ceiling for a long time, contemplating his next move. After about ten minutes of calling for Pidge, his only accomplishment has been managing to lose most of his dignity along with his voice. It’s become pretty clear that he needs a different strategy.

The chandelier is distracting. Drops of golden light coat it and they make a soft, bubbly sound every time the boat rocks. As he sits there, the walls gradually melt from a pale blue to the color of blood stains on an old carpet. He doesn’t pay much mind to the change in color scheme - at this point he almost expected it, which is absurd.

Keith shakes out the tired thoughts from his brain and bolts upright. The moon is already fading away in the sky, being chased away by the pale dawn light creeping over the town. It seems closer now, but that still means that he’s stranded here. He wouldn’t stand a chance trying to swim out, with his heavy clothing and current physical state.

A loud crash from the other side of the room makes him leap to his feet. He whirls around to find Pidge crouching behind a bright red chaise lounge, eyes apprehensive.

Instead of crossing the room to reach her, Keith slumps back down onto the couch and watches her. This seems to unnerve her.

“Took you awhile,” he says.

“What are you doing?” Pidge asks, confusion written in her eyes.

He shrugs. “What does it look like I’m doing? This Trials business is tiring, maybe I need to rest for a bit.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

Keith raises his eyebrows, keeping his expression purposefully vague. He doesn’t look Pidge in the eyes. Instead, he stares at the chandelier again and starts counting the golden droplets. He’s on the fifteenth when he finally speaks. “Well, it’s been kind of a long time since I last saw you. Tell me, what’s been happening lately? Anything you might have forgotten to mention in your letters?”

Pidge sighs and stands up. She adjusts her mask, which had been knocked askew some time ago. “I can explain. Most of it. The rest you’ll have to take up with the Magician.”

“Oh, I will.”

She takes a seat on the chaise lounge she’d been hiding behind just a moment before, still eyeing Keith shrewdly. “Have you finally lost it?”

“Well, I dunno, maybe the strain of participating in a game with no rules and an abundance of weird otherworlds has gotten to me, y’know? It’s kind of hard, running around every day searching for the answers to clues I, frankly, don’t want to find in the first place! Plus having to deal with the eccentric orchestrator of this game who also seems to have a… fixation on me?”

Pidge nods, acting a little too solemn for Keith to take her seriously. “Why are you here?”

“He sent me an invitation” is all she says.

Keith blinks. He’d expected Pidge to say something along the lines of “I snuck onto a ship and I’ve been hiding in some cave near the beach ever since the Trials started because I’m a gremlin who will stop at nothing to satisfy my own stupid curiosity even if it puts me in immense danger” (well, maybe not that last bit), but he hadn’t considered the idea that the Magician had actually allowed her on his island.

“He sent me an invitation,” Pidge repeats. She’s trying to put up a front of nonchalance, he can tell. But she’s violently twitching her thumbs, a nervous tick that spawned from playing video games to relieve stress. “It was about a week after you left. The Garrison feels weird without you, by the way. We don’t even have Hunk around anymore, now that he’s living in Balmera making a big name for himself as a chef.

“But he said he knew how much I wanted this, and that he’d already sent someone to come get me. So it was pointless to refuse. He was right - how could I say no?”

Keith groans and sinks deeper into the couch cushions as if that will help him escape the situation.

“It’s a cool mask,” Pidge mumbles defensively. “Just because you can’t seem to enjoy this place doesn’t mean that other people shouldn’t get the same chance.”

“It’s dangerous,” Keith snaps. “If he’d bothered to tell you what you’re getting into, you never would’ve wanted to come.”

“In that case, I guess you don’t really know me.” Pidge crosses her arms, using the fact that Keith is sitting down to her advantage. She looms over him, her mask glinting, her hood colored yellow-green in the chandelier light. “Tell me. What’s so terrible about this place that makes you think I’d turn around and run back to the Garrison? Anywhere’s got to be better than there.”

He shakes his head, but can’t voice the things he wants to describe to her. The morasses, the deceptive layers of magic, the expression on the Magician’s face after they escaped the remains of the Second Trial, eyes consumed by that unnatural blue light.

That last one stands out in his mind most prominently.

“That’s not what’s most important about this,” Keith mutters. He sits up on the couch, perched on the edge to stare Pidge in the face. “What exactly did he tell you in that invitation?”

Her expression grows wary. “You should ask him that. I’m just here to -”

She cuts herself off fast, but not fast enough.

“You’re here to what?” he demands. “Provide a distraction? Throw me off the right path? Are you his minion now?”

“What - no, when did you become so paranoid?” Pidge steps away from him, disappointment evident in her gaze. “Look, I don’t actually know how much I’m allowed to tell you. But this isn’t a conspiracy or anything like that. I’m still me.”

“In that case, you’d tell me what’s going on.”

Her fingers start twitching again as she assesses the situation. Keep her cards close to her chest and stay on the island, or risk angering the Magician and throwing away the chance of a lifetime?

Eventually, her shoulders slump in resignation. “Alright, but not here. We should at least try to make some headway in this Trial as you bombard me with questions.”

She reaches for Keith’s hand and fishes through the red sash tied around her waist until she finds what she’s looking for - a piece of blue paper lined in silver and gold folded to the size of her palm. She tucks in corners, unfolds and refolds layers, and smooths out wrinkles in a blur of movement. In a matter of seconds a little paper lantern with a small diamond perched on the top rests in her hand.

“And since when have you been able to do _that?_ ” Keith asks, mouth hanging slightly open.

Pidge shrugs, looking a little smug. “Since I got the invitation. He sent me a whole pack of the fanciest paper I’ve ever seen along with the letter. Just instructed me to try and make something out of a piece, and aha! I might’ve found my true calling.”

“That’s great, really, but how is this useful, again?”

She sticks her tongue out at him. “So impatient. This is why you can’t enjoy things. Watch.”

He does. The origami lantern rises from Pidge’s hand, the diamond at the tip glowing softly. It floats out the window, and Pidge vaults over the couch Keith had been sitting in earlier to follow it. Keith follows, with more trepidation than his friend. This means that he has to climb out the window instead of walk across the room to the door, which would have been the better option, but Pidge and her tiny body make crawling through the tight fit look deceptively easy. Keith ends up unceremoniously sprawled on the boat island’s floor, his clothes soaking up the water from the damp wood. His shoulder aches from where he hit it against the window frame.

Pidge nudges him with her foot until he relents. He gets to his feet, only for his arm to be grabbed so roughly that he lurches forward. He might have fallen into the lake if it hadn’t been for the origami lantern. Pidge reaches out for it just as it starts to pulse with a light to rival the moon’s.

The next thing he realizes, they’re standing in front of the canal. A boat bobs in the water, tied to a post with a string of fraying rope.

The origami lantern falls into Pidge’s hand, no longer glowing. She crumples it up and stuffs it into her sash.

“Get in,” she says, patting the seat beside her in the boat.

Keith sits across from her, crossing his ankles and feeling uneasy. “Where are we going, exactly?”

She tosses him the oars and says, “I don’t know yet. Your turn to row, though.” 

He takes them roughly from her hand and does as she says, if only because he wants to be over with this already.

Unlike the boat he’d first boarded with Pidge, this one has two oars, so he can at least sit down while rowing. They make their way through the canal, down the main road, past many different shops closing up for the day. Pidge looks around with wonder still, taking in the sight of the village in the daytime. The lanterns have all mysteriously disappeared, as though they’d all been rushed out as soon as the sun rose. There are considerably less people out on the streets than during the evening, when the town seems to be most busy.

“When I reached the island, one of his prodigies told me my main role was to find you. When I did, I should lead you up the canal, collect my payment, and drop you off in the lake. I almost pushed you off the boat when we reached it, but then I saw the boat island and figured that’s where I was supposed to take you instead. Be grateful I saw it when I did.”

“Yeah, thanks…,” Keith starts to say, before fully comprehending the fate of drowning he just managed to escape.

The rest of her words sink in just a moment later. “Wait, payment. You mean my memory? When are you planning to give that back?”

“That’s not how payment works,” she says slowly and clearly, as if explaining something to a toddler. “You see, I provide you my services, and in return you give me -”

“You said it was only temporary.”

“Oh, I did.” She frowns. “You can have your little memory back, don’t worry. I have to give it to the Magician first, though.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “I asked, believe me. He wouldn’t say.”

“Just like him,” Keith grumbled. Knowing that the Magician will be seeing his (supposedly) most treasured memory makes his skin crawl. Now that’s just a plain violation of privacy. And the fact that Pidge would sell his own memories without hardly a fight to the first person she met with a pretty wardrobe and a promise of adventure is… concerning, for one. A little insulting, as well.

He looks around the town, taking note of all the shops they float by. There’s a florist nearby, plus a dress shop, a restaurant, and a bookshop. Quite a motley of businesses, really. “Why do you think he picked you to act as a prodigy?” he mutters, almost to himself. “Why not some other contestant’s friend?”

“It all circles back to his obsession with you,” she says matter-of- factly. “Honestly, how many times is someone going to have to remind you? You’re his personal guest. He practically created this entire Game with you in mind. At least, that’s what I think.”

“Then who did he create the last Games for? Is he just like this with some new person every year?”

Automatically, Pidge asks, “Why, are you jealous?”

Keith tries really hard not to go red in the face. Really, really hard. Luckily, Pidge doesn’t seem to notice, or care. She takes out a piece of paper and starts folding it into something that could either be a bird or a boat. Putting to use the skills the Magician granted her.

Pidge throws it into the air. A bird, then. It flaps its wings a couple times, then falls at Keith’s feet. She frowns at it and tries again. “The letter he sent me disappeared as soon as I set foot on the island. I guess that means he didn’t want me showing it to anyone - well, showing it to you.”

Keith scoffs. “I’d trust him with my deepest secrets.”

“ _I’m_ the one telling you all this,” Pidge reminds him. “Not him.”

“You sold out my memories to him.”

“Not _yet._ Can I continue now?” She doesn’t wait for his response. “So, when I got here, I was taken to the Castle of Lions; a ballroom, to be exact. He was waiting for me, along with his ‘top prodigy.’” She puts this in air-quotes for some reason.

“Allura,” Keith supplies.

“The very same. She gave me this mask and the outfit, and they explained my role in this Game. Apparently they do this often - taking one of the contestants’ friend or family members from their original homes - with their permission, of course, don’t look so alarmed - and dumping them on Altea to fulfill certain tasks to move the Trials forward and stuff. It complicates matters, which I guess the Magician really likes. He said it spices things up.”

“I’m assuming you’re okay with being entertainment?” Keith grumbles.

“First of all, I’m not entertainment,” Pidge snaps. “I like to think I’m smarter than that, and it’d be nice if you thought so, too. Second, I’m not anyone’s pet or deus ex machina or whatever. Keep that in mind.”

Keith doesn’t dare interrupt her now. She’s on a roll.

“I’m not supposed to guide you through the Trials exactly - that would be cheating - but the Magician told me I was to pose as a prodigy and keep an eye on the town, the participants in the Game, and especially you. He gave me the boat for that reason.”

“Your job was to stalk me.” Keith lets out a huff of indignance. “As if taking my memories wasn’t bad enough.”

“Well, you’re kind of being a jerk about it, so maybe I will just sell it off to the Magician if you keep acting so stuck up.” Pidge reaches into her sash (which cements Keith’s belief that it is, in fact, a neverending purse of some sort) and pulls out a glowing slip of paper. She tugs at the corners. It pops up into the form of a lantern - the same one that holds Keith’s memory. “Act a little nicer - and promise me you’ll be a little more lenient with your secrets in the future - and I might reconsider.”

“I’m not being a jerk about anything,” Keith sputters. “It’s a perfectly normal thing to feel a little betrayed and confused about this entire scenario.”

“I get _that,_ ” Pidge says, rolling her eyes. “What I don’t get is why you won’t have a little more faith in the Game of Marvels. And the Magician, for that matter. He’s nice enough to you.”

Keith sets the oars down, his arms aching down to the bone. The canal is as empty as the rest of the town, so there’s no chance of his causing some kind of river traffic back-up. He starks ticking his irritations off on his fingers. “He never gives me a straight answer. He practically abducted you. He makes everything so overly complicated for his own amusement. He told me to call him ‘Lance,’ _but he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who should have a name._ ”

“Why is that last one a priority?”

“Okay, maybe not,” he admits. “But everything else is a valid point.”

Pidge looks him in the eyes as she counteracts his points. “One; maybe you aren’t asking the right questions. Two; he didn’t abduct me. I could have refused had I wanted to. Three; the Game isn’t supposed to be a walk through the park. It’s meant to confuse and thrill and give you a taste of something different and magical. That’s the whole selling point. What else were you expecting?”

Just like back on the island, she overturns his presumptions with logic. Keith has a hard time finding holes in her reasoning.

“What about his name?” he asks, purely out of curiosity this time. “Lance is a rather… unassuming name.”

“He told me to call him that,” Pidge remarks. “I could hardly believe it. I kinda thought he’d always just been… the Magician.”

Keith finds himself agreeing with her. Her surprise appearance on Altea is starting to feel a little more manageable. It’s not like the Magician has tampered with her thoughts or anything like that (at least, he hopes so). The Pidge sitting before him sporting bright clothes and a prodigy mask is still the same Pidge that would go wild over the new tech that, every now and then, the Garrison was able to afford for its students. The same golden eyes, the same golden thoughts.

Perhaps the rest of the details can wait. Keith picks up the oars again.

“So what are your clues for this Trial, exactly?” she eventually asks, after having had enough about the speculative silence. “They’ve got to have given you something, right?”

Keith hesitates, but then decides that if he gets to interrogate her he should at least give her the freedom to do the same. “I have these cards. Allura gave them to me, though all they’ve really done so far is get me in trouble.”

Pidge perks up at the mention of a mystery. “Oh, let me see them!”

Keith fishes out the cards from his pocket and reluctantly hands them over. Pidge snatches them up greedily, her eyes skimming over each one without missing a detail. “Striga Incantrix, Lazarus Lantern,” she recites. “Neat; what do they mean?”

Keith scrunches up his nose, trying to remember Allura’s reading of them. “The lantern one symbolizes temporary death and sidequests. I’m still not sure if I should be worried about that or not. Striga Incantrix, or ‘the loss of something hidden.’”

Pidge hums, her grin a mix of awe and puzzlement.

Keith moves on to the next card, Poison Present. The image of the bottle is drawn with harsh lines of colored charcoal, and though it looks nothing like the bottle of striga incantrix juice still tucked away in his pocket, he gets a sense of unease seeing the card again. “That one’s a little more concrete. Apparently it means there’s something wrong going on.”

Pidge stares at him, expression bewildered. “You consider that concrete? That means nothing without evidence.”

“I’ve just been relying on the pictures as clues.” Now that he thinks about it, it seems like an idiotic excuse for a plan.

She has no mercy for him. “Well, that’s where you’re going wrong, obviously. You have to consider all possibilities and aspects of the clues you’re given. Honestly, ‘relying on the pictures?’ What kind of childish method is that?”

Keith makes a noise of indignance, but she’s right, of course. For the hundredth time he wonders why the Magician chose him to play in his Games, and as a special guest no less, with his utter lack of skills needed to win the thing.

Pidge mutters things about the cards under her breath for a while, and she has plenty of time to do it, too. The boat ride feels never ending, and so do her theories about what kind of “clues” the cards might be referencing to.

“So you say you’ve already tried the obvious approach, with the pictures,” she says. “What about their actual names? Maybe they’re telling you to go someplace.”

“Know any place on the island called _Lazarus?_ ” Keith asks.

“I’ve only seen the beach, one room of the Castle, and the parts of the town the Magician told me to patrol. Cut me some slack.”

He nods absentmindedly. He starts looking for something to focus his attention on besides the burning in his arms.

Then she snaps her fingers loudly, startling him. “Your card. The Lazarus one. What’s it look like again?”

“Oh, um…” He fumbles around for the cards in his pocket, resurfacing with the one she’d asked for. He almost drops it in the canal with his clumsiness, but Pidge catches it just in time. 

She holds the card up next to a point over Keith’s shoulder. He turns around in his seat, but he doesn’t see anything out of the usual landscape of the town. But whatever Pidge finds, it satisfies her, and she lets out a yelp of excitement. “Drop us off over there,” she says, pointing to the nearest post to tie up the boat.

Keith’s arms ache as he docks the boat against the side of the canal. Pidge barely waits for the boat to settle into its new resting spot before she’s jumping out of it and onto the street. 

Pidge’s quick movements send the boat rocking back and forth, but Keith can’t wait for it to still because she’s already turning down the corner and out of view. He jumps out of the boat and onto solid ground with great relief at not having to have suffered falling into the canal. He follows her down the street, tripping over his own feet as he tries to regain his balance.

He finds her standing in front of a darkened shop, the Lazarus card held up in front of her face. “You were right,” she says slowly, as though she can’t bring herself to believe it. “It’s in the pictures. The lantern, see?”

Indeed, two lanterns hang from the shop’s awning, made of red paper just like the one in the card. Pale lights flicker inside them, barely visible in the daytime.

“I think there’s something hidden in them,” Pidge says, jumping up and down to reach the lanterns, but failing miserably. “But if I turn out to be wrong, and this is considered vandalism or something, it’s your fault.”

Keith walks up behind her. Despite being considerably taller than her, he still has to stand on his toes to reach the lanterns. “Why me? If we get caught you should stay with me and see if you get a pass for being a prodigy.”

Pidge doesn’t respond, having already returned her focus to the lanterns and the card. She overturns her own lantern and violently shakes it up and down. A half-burned candle falls out. Her brow furrows, but she snatches Keith’s lantern out of his hands and repeats the process. Another candle falls out, a trail of smoke curling into the sky when it hits the stone pavement. Keith watches her with some fear and a lot more confusion. Her face falls.

Upon seeing his perplexed expression, Pidge hands him the card. “See how there’s a person curled up in there? I thought there might be something in the lanterns, but I guess…”

Keith shrugs. “That’s the Trials for you. Just a bunch of misleading clues.”

“At least I’m trying,” Pidge grumbles. “Can’t really say the same about you.”

“I’m trying,” he protests. As if to articulate his point, he grabs the card out of her hand and scrutinizes it again. There’s no background to indicate that it might be trying to guide him to a specific place. The lantern takes up the entire card.

“In that case,” Pidge says, handing the lanterns back to Keith for him to hang up again, “we should keep looking. Look around for any more lanterns like the one in the card. Maybe they’re leading us somewhere.”

He’d considered that before, actually. But he’d soon figured out that every lantern was the same, and only meant to light the darkened streets of the town.

But perhaps… the leftover lanterns might have some significance besides their shop owners being too lazy or too busy to stash them away once the morning rose.

Keith twirls the card between his fingers, his eyes tracing the silver filigree crawling up the sides and settling in the corners in the form of thorn bushes. “We have seven and a half days to win this thing.”

Pidge raises an eyebrow at him. “Well, that’s plenty of time.”

“Still, we shouldn’t let our guard down. I say we get this over so afterwards I can… have a talk with the Magician. About various things.”

“Promise me you won’t blow your fuse in the first five minutes of conversation and lose all sense of reason,” Pidge sighs.

Keith gives her a slightly pained look, but he can’t deny the validity of her warning. He does have a bad habit of doing just that, especially where the Magician is concerned.

Instead of agreeing to a vow he isn’t fully certain he can go through with, he stashes the card back into the folds of his shawl-scarf. He makes his way back to the canal, scanning the other streets for any sign of a lantern suspiciously left out in a shop front. Pidge rushes ahead of him with the same intent, darting through the alleyways and peering into shop windows like a hummingbird.

“Over there!” she shouts. Her quick step carries a bounce in it as she crosses a bridge over the canal to reach a shop where two red lanterns swinging languidly over the door. Keith runs after her, a little slower.

The lanterns hang a little lower to the ground this time. When he catches up to Pidge, she’s already taken down the lanterns and is in the process of repeating the search tactics she’d used for the last two.

“Is this property damage, do you think?” Keith asks, glancing around the empty street.

Pidge snorts. “We’re not destroying anything, and we’ll put them back when we’re done with them. Besides” - she peers up at him through her eyelashes accusingly - “I never knew you to be particularly concerned with ‘safety’ and the like.”

Keith scowls and changes the subject. “So did you find anything with these ones?”

“So far, no luck,” she says, tossing aside one lantern. Keith catches it and sets it down, then grabs the one Pidge had been reaching for.

He peers through the opening in the top, but there’s only a half-melted candle like in the ones before. “Nothing. We’re wasting our time.”

Pidge hides her disappointment well. She picks up both lanterns and ties them back up over the shop entrance, her movements much more sluggish than before. But before Keith can find something to say to reassure her with, she slumps onto the ground and assumes a pensive glint to her eyes. He recognizes this look. She’ll likely stay this way until she either comes to a satisfying conclusion in her thought process or something comes around to snap her out of it.

Sighing, Keith sits down next to her, certain that she’ll figure something out; not so certain that she’ll figure it out soon. He only wishes she’d at least tell him what’s going on in her mind, so that they might actually work together. But it most likely, genuinely never occurred to her.

He pulls out the three cards again, setting them on the ground before him. He’s practically memorized them now, and yet he keeps scanning them in hopes of finding something he missed in his previous inspections. Pidge eyes the cards as well, though her gaze is unfocused.

Then she moves her hand from where it was supporting her chin and taps the lantern card. “It looks different from the ones all around the town.”

Keith picks it up, looking between the red paper lantern sketched in the card and the ones hanging over the shop entrance. “What do you mean? Besides the little person in there -”

“No, idiot,” Pidge cuts in. “I mean the lantern depicted on the card doesn’t have writing on it.” She points at the shop decorations above her. “See, those have runes, or something of the sort, written on them.”

“Altean runes,” Keith mutters. “Of course.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s not like we have a translator with us, so nothing we can do about that. Unless you can suddenly read those runes, being a fake prodigy now?”

Pidge gathers up the cards from the ground and shoves them in Keith’s direction. “I wish. It looks like a cool language to know.”

He snatches up the cards. “So what does this mean? That we’re searching for a specific lantern that doesn’t have writing on it?”

“Exactly.” With that, Pidge takes off down the street, continuing her frenetic search of the town. Keith follows, all the while psyching himself up for a few long hours of fruitless endeavors.

They make their way down alleyways with fluorescent animals scurrying across the stone pavement and out of sight, through streets lined with dimly-lit storefronts that soon begin to blur together. (He’s pretty certain that that woman peering into each store window and lurking around corners is a Game spectator. Keith passes by her quickly.) He inspects each paper lantern for Altean runes as Pidge darts around already in search of the next bright red clue to continue them on their search. Meanwhile, the sun grows ever more insistent that the world pay attention to it. 

Keith is starting to really regret wearing so many layers of clothing, and considering calling it quits soon, when Pidge lets out a half-laugh, half-screech of triumph.

He rushes over to where Pidge is circling a lantern dangling just out of reach over her head. 

There’s nothing particularly special about the shop Keith finds himself standing in front of. _DREAMS AND FANTASIES_ is written on a wooden sign swinging lightly in the breeze over the window. It’s not the strangest name for a store he’s seen so far. In fact, he’s a little intrigued by it.

But Pidge doesn’t allow him to enter the actual shop. She grabs his arm roughly and points up at the lantern. “I’m pretty sure this one doesn’t have any writing on it, but I need you to check anyway.”

Keith pries her hand away from his sleeve and unties the lantern with a speed he’s acquired over the course of the day. He turns it around in his hands. Pidge is right. Not a single rune is painted on the red paper.

Before he can look inside to see if Pidge’s hunch is correct, she snatches it from his hands and overturns it, shaking it up and down and every which way.

Something small and shiny falls from the round opening in the top and clatters to the ground.

Keith leans down and picks it up as Pidge barks an “Aha!” from beside him.

It’s a crystal vial, barely the size of his thumb. It’s blown into a perfectly smooth, round shape, unlike the raw cut of the other vial in his possession.

“What is it?” Pidge asks over his shoulder, startling him.

Instead of answering, he pulls out the vial of striga incantrix juice Bandor gave him. “Did you ever notice the large number of swirl- petaled flowers around the island?” He tells her a brief version of how he found it.

“Striga Incantrix,” she mutters.

“How did you -”

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Striga Incantrix,” she repeats. “It’s the name of one of the cards Allura gave you, isn’t it? It had a flower on it that looked similar to the kind you just described.”

 _Oh, right._ Keith frowns and returns his attention to the two bottles in his hand. It’s difficult to make out what exactly is in them, what with the crystal’s multi-hued tint, but a quick shake of the vials reveals that there is indeed something sloshing around in there. 

“Two down, one more to go,” he murmurs.

He pulls out the last card, the bronze sun and the hypnotic flowers. He doesn’t know what the Striga Incantrix card is pushing him towards, but he might have an idea as to where he can get more information. With that, he’ll surely move on to the next Trial. 

But before that can happen, he’ll have to start reassessing his priorities. If he should take the opportunity he’s been given as a personal guest of the Magician’s… or if he should cast that aside and rely on everyone else around him. A plan is forming in the back of his mind, jostling for attention regardless of how distasteful it seems.

A swift punch to the arm jolts him out of his thoughts. He glances down at Pidge, whose face is pinched in annoyance. “You weren’t listening to a thing I was saying, were you?” she accuses. “If you’re going to at least ignore my theories, then you might at least have the decency to hand over those glass bottles instead of keeping them all to yourself.”

“Not glass,” Keith says automatically. “Crystal, see?”

She handles them with more care than her fiery tone would have suggested. She rolls them over in her palm, admiring the craftsmanship. All the while muttering indistinguishable things under her breath about what magical liquids it might contain, what they could mean for their use for the rest of the Game, all things Keith has already thought of at least in passing.

“I’m going to leave these with you,” he tells her, backing away. “I have some other things to… attend to.”

Pidge doesn’t seem to hear him, or notice as he turns on his heel back in the direction of the canal, and (he hopes) back to the Castle of Lions. By the time she notices he’s gone, she won’t be able to follow. A twinge of guilt strikes, but he is also grateful for the complete, undivided attention she will give to her thoughts and theories, for what he plans to do next would probably be an experience best not shared with her. Too much leverage to hold over him later.

Miraculously, he finds his way back to the Castle (after an hour or so of aimlessly wandering around the town and running from a couple spectators that recognized him), out of breath and determined. The sun has finally settled high in the sky, yet it still seems bent on raising its temperature. Keith manages to untangle himself from the red shawl.

He marches across the bridge with as much dignity as possible while looking as though he hasn’t slept in two days. (Which is mostly true, but never mind that.)

He passes through the great front doors, recognizes a few prodigies and guests that are wandering about the gilded foyer. He doesn’t pay much more than a passing glance to them, hell-bent on this new idea as he is -

He runs headfirst into someone on the first step of the imperial staircase. Keith stumbles back.

Allura blinks at him, her hands reaching out on instinct to steady him, though he doesn’t need it. “Keith,” she says, shaking of her surprise with ease. “Oh, I was wondering when you would show your face here again. I hope your outing was successful?”

Keith nods vigorously. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thanks.” He doesn’t know what he’s saying, still lost in a bit of frenzied thoughts. “I gotta go…”

Allura dodges out of his way. “Of course. You might have luck searching the topmost floor, perhaps even the roof.”

He’d already turned his back to her and is starting up the stairs again, but at this he shoots her a puzzled look. “What?” 

She smiles. “Your Magician. That’s who you are looking for, isn’t it?”

Keith nods again, which seems to be the only thing he’s capable of right now. He steps out of the way as she passes by, still disoriented over the fact that she’d referred to the Magician as “his.” What the hell could that mean?

He only gets over that little detail and reins his focus back in after Allura has disappeared into another room off to the side of the grand foyer. That’s when he realizes that he never told her he was looking for the Magician, and in hindsight, he doesn’t think he gave any indication that that was his intent.

Nevertheless, he shakes off that tiny concern and heads up the stairs with the same resolve he had before, though this time a little more aware of his surroundings. He silently thanks Allura for her help as he navigates through the Castle corridors up to the roof.

It takes less time than he imagines - again, as if the Castle is working in his favor. Keith climbs the stairs slowly, uncertainly.

The first thing he sees is a tall figure standing only a few feet away, silhouetted by the sun. The Magician’s back is turned to him as he looks out across the ocean.

What he isn’t expecting to see, however, is the hulking animal sitting next to him like a dog expecting treats. The Empryae’s wings are folded in, its deer head tucked into its mane of white fur as though its sleeping. Its lion tail flicks lazily in the midday heat.

Keith almost wants to back down and leave the rooftop before either of them notice his presence. But it appears the Magician was expecting him. His hand falls from where it was smoothing out a patch of fur on the Empryae’s side, and he turns around.

He’s not wearing any sort of hat, Keith notices with some surprise. The wind tangles knots in his white hair, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Compared to his usual enthusiasm, the spark in his eyes is subdued.

He holds out his hands defensively as he walks closer to Keith, who’s now rooted to the spot, apparently. Useless. “Before you say anything, I am fully prepared to hear whatever rant you have for me today.”

A tiny bit instinctively, Keith takes a step back, resting a hand on the metal railing. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve got nothing for you in that category - today.”

The Magician cants his head, looking genuinely curious. “Really? What else, then? An interrogation?”

“A conversation,” Keith says, irritable that he should jump to the same conclusions as Pidge had just a few hours ago. Though, so far, he hasn’t really given any evidence to suggest that this confrontation would be anything but. “A regular conversation.”

“Oh, a change of heart. And where did this come from again?”

“That’s actually one of the things I’d like to discuss.” He’s trying his best to keep his tone of voice blank. His expressions, too.

The Magician’s face brightens considerably. “Well, I’d be happy to comply. Tell me everything.”

He turns back to the Empryae then, frowning at its judgmental stare. “But first I’ll have to deal with you. Do you mind if I…?”

Unsure of what he’s asking permission to do, Keith just waves his hand in a hesitant _go ahead_ gesture.

The Magician bounds over to the Empryae, but instead of politely telling it to leave, he ruffles the deer head, tells it to wake up, them promptly climbs onto its back. He reaches out a hand to Keith.

“...What are you doing?”

“Ever since we met that night, we’ve sort of become… friends. But I found out that it’s been neglecting food for a while now, and so I’m trying to get it to eat again. We’ll just be supervising, to make sure it gets its fill.”

“Does that…” Keith stares at the Magician’s outstretched hand. “Involve flying?”

His smile widens, which is answer enough.

Oh, well, it turns out re-evaluating your priorities/life choices/etc. still leads to terrible outcomes in the end. Why does anyone even bother trying? He accepts the Magician’s hand even as his gut sinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This went through some very heavy editing, which is the main reason it took so long, rip. I also didn't want a repeat of the absolute monster that was chapter 4, which is why the ending is rushed  
> All that being said I'll try to get the next one out faster, I swear ヽ(´∀｀ヽ)


End file.
